Hindenburg The Wooden Titan

Vj Briber, Berlin

PRESIDENT VON HINDENBURG

STUDIES IN MODERN HISTORY
General Editor : L. B. Namibu, Professor of Modern
History, University of Manobeater

HINDENBURG

THE WOODEN TITAN

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HINDENBURG

THE WOODEN TITAN

JOHN W. WHEELER-BENNETT

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COPYRIGHT

PEIMTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY E, & a. OLAKK, LIFTED, EDlNBURaH

TO

GEEAID PALMER

AND TO

HIS MOTHER

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

WITH GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION

INTEODUCTION

My intention to write tins book arose originally from a con-
versation at a dinner-party in Berlin during tbe fateful
summer of 1932, wMob witnessed the close of the Weimar
Period in post-war German history and the ringing up of
the curtain on the Prelude to Hitler.

The past days had been full of great happenings. The
Chancellor, Dr. Bruning, had resigned together with his
Cabinet, and his successor was Herr von Papen, nominally
a man of the President’s own choice, actually the nominee
and puppet of the leaders of the Palace camarilla. General
Kurt von Schleicher, the President’s own son, Colonel
Oskar von Hindenburg, and the Secretary of State, Dr.
Meissner.

Later a decree had been published dissolving the Keichs-
tag and fixing July 16 as the date for new elections. The
Reichstag President, Dr. Lobe, had gone at once to the
President to protest agaiust the dissolution of a body
which only a few days before had given a vote of confidence
to Dr. Briining’s Government, and, alternatively, if there
must be new elections, to secure the President’s assurances
that the liberty of the voter should be guaranteed as here-
tofore. President von Hindenburg had promised full
liberty to the electorate and that the elections should be
held in the usual manner.

It was this latest event which formed the general topic
of conversation at dinner, and the anxiety of many of
those present was in great measure reUeved by it. If the
President had given his word everything would be aU right.

vii

INTRODUCTION

viii

At length., however, a very different view was put forward
by a retired naval officer, since dead, who had earned great
distinction during the war.

“Hindenburg’s record is a bad one”, he said. “Ludendorff
won his battles for him, and he betrayed Ludendorff; the
Kaiser made him a Field-Marshal, and he betrayed the
Kaiser; the Right elected him in 1925, and he betrayed the
Right; the Left elected him in 1932, and he has betrayed the
Left. Were I Lobe, I would not put too much faith in
Hindenburg’s promises.”

“And,” added someone, “if you remember, there was
another Paul von Hindenburg.”

The significance of the last remark escaped me, but the
naval officer’s statement came as a very definite shock to
my behefs concerning the President. In company, I believe,
with most Enghshmen, I entertained a strong admiration
for the veteran Field-Marshal, regarding him as the almost
ideal type of single-minded patriot who had twice emerged
from a weU-earned retirement to answer his country’s call
to further service, and having every claim to the title of
Fater des Volhes, and the more familiar and endearing
designation Der alte Herr.

To one holding these views, therefore, the naval officer’s
strictures sounded little short of blasphemy, and I left that
evening with the firm intention of investigating them with
the greatest care, for it seemed necessary in the interest of
historical truth that they should either be substantiated or
disproved.

As a result, then, of researches which have involved,
besides consultations of memoirs and official documents,
long conversations with those best qualified to know
and state the facts of the case, I beheve that it is not
inadmissible to place upon certain of the principal
events in the life of Marshal von Hindenburg the
interpretation put on them by the naval officer, more parti-
cularly, perhaps, upon those which occurred after his remark

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IX

was made. But like most generalities of its kind, which, are
apt to be made by strong individual personahties, it was
an over-statement.

Essentially Hindenburg’s character shows him to have
been a man of service, without ambition, and with no love of
pomp and ceremony. He had httle regard for reward; he
asked simply, throughout the seventy years of his active
hfe, “Where can I serve?” but he did not always consider
sufficiently the answer. Once convinced along what line his
duty lay — and the ease with which conviction was achieved
became progressively greater with advancing years — he
would pursue that policy with obstinate stolidity and little
discrimination until deflected towards some other path of
service.

With a temperament of this nature it was impossible to
escape the charges of disloyalty and betrayal, more par-
ticularly as the changes of course and conviction became
more frequent. But throughout the intricate pattern of in-
consistencies which marked the last fifteen years of Hinden-
burg’s life there ran the single thread of service to Germany
which had dominated his whole career.

Hot the least remarkable part of that career was the
legend which suddenly surrounded his name, and the
manner of its birth. If ever there was a victim of a legend it
was Hindenburg, for, despite himself, he was in time trans-
lated from a military sphere, for which he was eminently
well fitted by training and tradition, to the pohtical arena,
for which he had neither liking, aptitude, nor equipment.
His misfortune was the sudden attainment of almost super-
natural adoration on the part of the German people, who
elevated him to the position of a god and expected from
him god-like achievements.

The story of his life is both pitiful and tragic, for no
figures in history are more tragic than those who have out-
lived the faith in their greatness, and Hindenburg must be
numbered amongst these. It was not given to him to die

X INTRODUCTION

before bis name bad become one for execration by many of
bis countrymen.

In approaching my subject my greatest difficulty bas been
one of focus. Hindenburg’s personality is an elusive one, or
perhaps it is truer to say that it has a “self-protective
colouring”; it is continually melting into the background.
For the Marshal very rarely dominated the events of bis
long lifetime. Far more often be was dwarfed by them, and
always be played the part of a fa§ade. At no time can it be
said that be was a free agent. Forces for good and evil used
bis name and bis legend to promote policies or to facilitate
intrigue. Throughout be remained a Wooden Titan, a giant
among men, but a dumb giant.

For this reason it bas been necessary to consider in
rather greater detail than the reader may at first think
justified the circumstances and personabties which con-
trolled and influenced Hindenburg throughout his long life.
Because of the tendency of the central figure to merge into
the background, it is essential to understand fully what the
background was, and only by this means is it possible to
arrive at even a partially faithful picture. This, then, is what
I have tried to do.

For reasons which I am sure will be fully understood it
is impossible for me to acknowledge my indebtedness pub-
licly by name to many of those whose recollections have
provided so important a part of my material. They them-
selves know how deeply grateful I am to them.

I can and must, however, express my most sincere grati-
tude to those whose advice has proved of such great assist-
ance to me, and first amongst these is my friend Professor
L. B. Namier, whose searching criticism, inexhaustible
patience, and warm encouragement have meant so much
both to me and to the book. Among others who have been
land enough either to read the MS. or to give me assistance
3n certain points are Major-General Sir Nefll Malcolm,
Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice, Miss Muriel Currey,

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XI

and Miss Elizabeth Monroe, and for their invaluable help I
ofier my most grateful thanks. I am deeply indebted and
most grateful to Major Archibald Church. To Mrs. P. E.
Baker, for her untiring work in checking and correcting the
proofs, my most sincere thanks are due.

N6 list of acknowledgments would be complete without
a recognition of my deep obhgation to my secretary. Miss
Margaret Dunk, upon whom has fallen much of the work
of preparation and collection, and to whom I ofier my
most appreciative thanks.

Lastly, I would say “Thank you” as sincerely as I can
to Mr. Gerald Palmer and to his mother for many weeks of
their most kind and generous hospitality at “Prior’s
Court”.

JOHN W. WHEELEE-BENNETT

Prior’s Court,
Chieveley, Berks
February i 1936

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

For a book of this nature it is neither possible nor politic
for the author to acknowledge all his sources of information,
and this is especially true when the book deals with
the internal poHtics of Germany. Out of regard for my
many friends whose help has been invaluable to me, and to
whom my gratitude can never be adequately expressed, I
will only say that wherever possible I have supplemented
the written word by personal conversations with the authors,
and with many whose memories and recollections have not
yet been committed to paper.

There already exist a number of biographical works on
Marshal von Hindenburg, chief among which are those by
Alfred Niemann, Theodore Lessing, Frederick and Mar-
garet Voigt, General Buat, A. M. K. Watson, Thomas
Ybarra, Gerhard Schultze-Pfaelzer, Emil Ludwig, Rudolf
Olden, and Major Gert von Hindenburg. In the writing of
this book I have consulted aU of these works, of which only
the last three have been pubhshed since the Marshal’s
death, but I have been very much more dependent upon
first-hand material.

For Parts I and II I have made use of the memoirs
and diaries of Hindenburg himself. Generals Luden-
dorfi, Hoffmann, von Falkenhayn, the younger von
Moltke, von Fran§ois, and von Educk, Field-Marshal Conrad
von Hbtzendorf, Colonel Bauer, Grand Admiral von
Tirpitz, the Kaiser, the German Crown Prince, the Crown
Prince of Bavaria, Prince Max of Baden, Herr von Beth-
mann HoUweg, Dr. Michaelis, the younger Count von
Hertling, Herr von Payer, Dr. Erzberger, Count von

xiii

XIV

BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTE

Valentini, Frau Margarethe Ludendorff, Count Ottokar
Czernin, Philip Scheidemann, the younger Ebert, Grustav
Noske, Lenin, and Leon Trotsky.

Invaluable material was found in the publications of the
Reichstag Committee of Investigation, Die XJrsachen des
deutschen Zusammenhruchs im Jahre 1918. Translations
of the Reports of this Co mmi ttee have been prepared and
published in Enghsh by the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace under the title of German Official Docu-
ments relating to the World War, and by Dr. Ralph Haswell
Lutz, under the auspices of the Hoover War Library at
Standford University, California, entitled The Causes
of the German Collapse in 1918. There is also the very
valuable study. The Birth of the German Republic, by
Dr. Arthur Rosenberg, one of the Secretaries of the Com-
mittee, and many important documents are to be found in
LudendorfE’s two volumes on The General Staff and its
Problems.

For the war episodes, apart from the information con-
tained in the authorities referred to, I have made use
of the Official History of the Great War, published under
the direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of
Imperial Defence, particularly the volumes deahng with
the mihtary operations in France and Belgimn in 1918; the
Reports of General von Kuhl and Colonel Schwertfeger;
General Sir Edmund Ironside’s exhaustive study of the
battle of Tannenberg; Rudolf van Wehrt’s Tannenberg; and
the comprehensive works of the Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill
and Mr. C. R. M. F. Cruttwell, Principal of Hertford College,
Oxford.

The account of the events at Spa and in Berlin during
October-November 1918 is based upon a study of the
memoranda and reports prepared by the principal actors
in the drama, including Admiral von Hintze, General Count
von Schulenburg, General von Plessen, General Count
von Marschall, Count Gonthard, Colonel Niemann, and

BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTE

XV

General Eisenbart-Rotlie, together with the official German
White Book on the Preliminary History of the Armistice,
Vorgeschichte des Waffenstillstandes, of which an English
translation has been pubhshed by the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace. In addition, there is the admirable
work of Dr. Maurice Beaumont, The Fall of the Kaiser.

Other works which I have found of particular assistance
in the preparation of these first two Parts are Karl Tschup-
pik’s Ludendorff; Karl Nowak’s The Collapse of Central
Europe and Chaos\ H. C. Armstrong’s Grey Wolf \ and Dr.
Lutz’ The German Revolution, 1918-1919, supplemented by
his documentary work. The Fall of the German Empire, both
pubhshed under the auspices of the Hoover War Library.

In the preparation of Part III I was confronted with an
embarras de choix mais pas de richesse. The pohtical litera-
ture of the post-war period in Germany is enormous and, for
the most part, inaccurate and partisan. Of first-hand
material there is httle of great value, for pohtical passions
render the memoirs and writings of Grzesinski and Otto
Strasser as imtrustworthy as those of Goring and Goebbels,
and such works as the Berlin Diaries and the White Book on
the events in Germany and Austria in June and July 1934,
though they contain much truth, must of necessity be
discounted to a great extent by the anonymity of their
authors.

I was fortunate, however, in being a fairly constant
visitor to Germany during much of this period and in close
contact with a number of the leading figures. I have, there-
fore, drawn largely upon my own records, together with
notes and memoranda made at the time.

But there are certain books which were of the greatest
assistance, among them Konrad Heiden’s Geschichte des
N ationalsozialismus and Geburt des dritten Reiches, published
in Enghsh in one volume as A History of National Socialism-,
Georg Bernhard’s Die deutsche Tragodie-, Arthur Rosen-
berg’s Geschichte des deutschen Republih, and, of course, the

ZVl

BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTE

Stresemann Papers, and the admirable biographical studies
of him by Rudolf Olden and Antonina Vallentin. Certain
works by Enghsh and American authors must be included
in this category; for example, Germany puts the Clock Back,
by Edgar Mowrer, and The Fall of the German Republic, by
R. T. Clark; while for accurate studies of the Nazi Revolu-
tion itself there is nothing better than Powys Greenwood’s
German Revolution, and Germany enters the Third Reich, by
Calvin B. Hoover.

I have also used my own works on disarmament,
security, and reparations, viz.: The Problem of Security,
Disarmament and Security since Locarno, The Disarmament
Deadlock, The Reparation Settlement of 1930, and The Wreck
of Reparations.

JOHN W. WHEELER-BBNNETT

CONTENTS

Introduction ....
Bibliographical Note
Part I: Tannenberg and Pless
Part II: K!reuznaoh and Spa .
Part III: Weimar and Neudeck
Index ....

PAGE

vil

xiii

1

77

225

477

xvii

B

LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS

President von Hindenbnrg ..... frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Hammering Nails into the Wooden Statue . . .79

Hindenbnrg with Wounded Men on his 70th birthday, October

2nd, 1917 96

The Unveihng of the Wooden Statue in the Siegesallee, Berhn . 136

Hindenbnrg at Spa, June 1918 ..... 1^3

Hindenbnrg walking with the Kaiser and Ludendorff at Spa,

April, 1918 ....... 149

Hindenburg’s Bomb-proof Dug-out at Spa . . 183

The Wooden Statue in the Siegesallee, Berlin . . . 266

One of the Three-mark Pieces specially issued for the Tenth

Anniversary of the Weimar Constitution (August 11, 1929) . 333

Loyal Support ....... 464

Map of Eastern Front . . . . 18

Map of Western Front ..... 88

XIX

PART I

TANNENBEEG AND PLESS

I

TANNENBERG AND BLESS

1

It must be a rare thing for a man to be virtually reborn
twice during bis lifetime, so that he experiences three
completely different bves, each separated from the other
by an interval of several years, and each progressively
greater and more important than the last. Yet this is true
of Paul von Beneckendorf und von Hindenburg, General-
Field-Marshal and twice President of the German Reich.

The first of these “fives” dates from his birth in 1847 to
his retirement from the Army in 1911; the second begins
three years later, when, at the age of sixty-seven, he was
appointed to the command of the Eighth Army in August
1914, and ends with his second retirement in 1919; then,
after six years’ interval, when he was seventy-eight, begins
the third and last “life”, dating from his election to the
Presidency in 1925 until his death nine years later.

Born in Posen on October 2, 1847, he was the eldest of
three sons in a family which had its origin in the union of
two houses, each of which traced its mihtary record back
to the thirteenth century, when their ancestors had been
Knights of the Teutonic Order. Frederick the Great had
bestowed upon the Hindenburgs the two estates of Limbsee
and Neudeck in the Neumark of West Prussia in reward
for their services in the Silesian War, and although Limbsee

had to be sold in the days of retrenchment following the

3

4

TANNENBERG AM) PLESS

War of Liberation, Neudeck remained tbe “home” of tbe
family and remained in tteir possession uninterruptedly
until the death of the widow of one of the Marshal’s younger
brothers some years after the termination of the Great War.
As in all ancient families, there was the inevitable skeleton
in the cupboard. A certain Major Paul von Hindenburg was
court-martialled and shot in 1806 for treacherously sur-
rendering the fortress of Spandau to the French.

Paul von Hindenburg, steeped by family tradition in the
history of his country, passed his childhood in the Spartan
manner of the Prussian military caste. No weakness was
tolerated, and it is recorded that his nurse, who seems to
have been a female type of Prussian Grenadier, would at
once quell any protest or argument with a roar of “Silence
in the ranks”. At the age of eleven he joined the Prussian
Cadet Corps, of which he himself relates that the discipline
was “consciously and purposely rough”, and he remained
there until 1866, when, after a brief period of service as page
of honour to the widowed Queen Elizabeth of Prussia, he
was commissioned a second-lieutenant in the Third Regi-
ment of Foot Guards.

Too young to take part in the war against Denmark,
Hindenburg received his baptism of fire from the Austrians
at Soor in the Seven Weeks’ War, and at the close of the
campaign was decorated with the Order of the Red Eagle
for the capture of a battery of guns at Koniggratz, in the
course of which he was wounded. Four years later, in the
Franco-Prussian War, he won the Iron Cross for bravery in
the field and was chosen to represent his regiment at the
proclamation of the German Emperor at Versailles.

At the end of the war iu 1871 he returned to the ordinary
existence of any rising young officer engaged in “mihtary
peace work”, and during those years even his most enthusi-
astic biographer, Niemann, is forced to admit that his
services “were valuable, though not decisive”. He was a part,
and a rather insignificant part, of the new German Empire’s

TANNENBERG AND PLESS

5

new army, whidi was organized and developed during the
Wilhelmian era, and through the ranks of which he slowly
worked his way, in forty years of stafi and regimental duties,
from captain to lieutenant-general. He was never promoted
on account of any outstanding service, but rose in the regular
advancement of a conscientious ofl6i.cer, and the number of
medals and orders conferred on him by the Emperor was
but the minimum amount consistent with his rank.

At length in 1904 he was appointed to the command of
the Fourth ALrmy Corps, with headquarters at Magdeburg,
and it was in this capacity that he took part in the Imperial
manoeuvres of 1908. Here, however, he allowed zeal to out-
run discretion and committed the fatal mistake of letting
the army corps commanded by the Emperor lose the battle.
The All-Highest dishked defeat at the hands of his own
generals, even if it was an accident, and when three years
later Hindenburg made application to retire at the end of
his period of command, there was a strong rumour that it
was not unconnected with the unfortunate event of the 1908
manoeuvres. He himself emphatically denied it: “My mih-
tary career had carried me much farther than I had ever
dared to hope. There was no prospect of a war, and, as I
recognised that it was my duty to make way for younger
men, I apphed in the year 1911 to be allowed to retire’\

There is, however, evidence to show that even before
this date Hindenburg had ceased to enjoy the Imperial
favour, if, indeed, he had ever enjoyed it. During the dis-
cussions which preceded the appointment of Moltke to
succeed Schheffen as Chief of the Imperial General Staff
in 1905, Hrndenburg’s name, in company with others, was
put forward, but the Emperor dismissed him from con-
sideration as a raisonneur.

He therefore resigned himself at the age of sixty-four to a
life of well-earned rest and tranquillity in Hanover, and to
the congenial occupation of watching and advancing the
military career of his son Oskar, then a second-heutenant in

6

TANNBNBERG AND PLESS

his father’s old regiment, the Drittes Garde Regiment zu
Fuss. The name of Hindenburg was unknown to most of
his fellow countrymen. He was just one of the many re-
tired generals retained d la suite of their regiments, and
twelve other individuals were Usted on the same page as he
in the current issue of the German Who’s Who.

For four years General von Hindenburg hved a monoton-
ously pleasant existence in the autumn of his Ufe. He tra-
velled, and began that collection of pictures of the Madonna
and Child which, with shooting {der Jagdpassion), formed
his chief recreations. His health began to fad. Work would
have suited him better; he had always led an active if not
an athletic hfe, and though he enjoyed freedom from anxiety
and responsihihty, he was subconsciously irked by inaction.
It seemed as if he might not live to be seventy.

And then suddenly out of the blue summer sky of 1914
there came the war which galvanized him once more into
activity. The Day for which every German soldier had lived
and planned had arrived at last, and it found him no
longer in harness. With no further information than the
man in the street, Hindenburg gleaned his war news from
the newspapers, reading daily of the German advance upon
Paris and of the Russian invasion of East Prussia. With an
envious eye he watched the mobihzhtion at Hanover proceed
without him. The troops marching through the streets from
barracks to train passed him by unrecognized. He chafed in
a fever of inactivity. “I placed myself in the hands of fate
and waited in longing expectation.” At last in the late after-
noon of August 22 he received a telegram from the Kaiser
at Imperial G.H.Q. at Coblenz asking him if he were ready
for immediate service. Thankfully the General rephed “ Am
ready” and joyfully set about his preparations. Subsequent
telegrams informed him of his promotion to the rank of
Colonel-General and his appointment to the command of
the Eighth Army in East Prussia, with General Ludendorff
as his Chief of Staff. His second “hfe” had begun.

TANNENBEEG AND PLESS

7

2

The circumstances which led up to Hindenburg’s sudden
appointment on August 22, 1914, are of very considerable
importance, both in relation to his career, and to the sub-
sequent events at Tannenberg, upon which the Hindenburg
Legend was founded.

The military position in East Prussia at the outbreak of
war was dominated, in so far as Germany was concerned,
by the operation of the strategic plan by which the General
Stafi essayed to meet a war on two fronts. This plan had its
origins as far back as 1880, when the great Moltke had had
to envisage the possibility of a simultaneous war with
France and Russia. For military, poHtical, and psycho-
logical reasons Moltke had decided to attack the Russians
with the larger force and to take up a defensive attitude
against France, being even prepared to retire to a position
east of the Rhine.

In time, however, the reasons which influenced Moltke’s
decisions changed or became modified, and his successor,
Count von Waldersee, with recollections of 1812, elaborated
two plans according to the season of the year. If war broke
out in summer, the main attack was to be in the East; if in
winter, in the West.

It was the third of the German Chiefs of StafE, Count
Alfred von Schheffen, who finally abandoned Moltke’s plan
and adopted one based on precisely opposite principles.
France had by this time become the more dangerous enemy
for Germany; hence the rules of strategy demanded that,
regardless of the season of the year, the main attack should
be in the West. This would be delivered through Northern
France and Belgium against Paris, whilst there would be a
retreat in Alsace-Lorraine before the French armies. In the
meantime the East must look after itself until the decisive
battle in the West freed sufl&cient forces for an ofiensive.

8

TANNENBEEG AND PLBSS

But here Nature had provided a strong measure of pro-
tection. The Russian armies, on entering German territory,
would inevitably be divided by the Masurian Lakes and
could only continue their advance by sending one army to
the north and the other to the south of this chain. The
German army therefore must be prepared to attack one of
these armies, while they were disunited, and defeat it; being
ready then to turn upon the other.

Unfortunately for Germany, but providentially for the
Allies, the Imperial Chief of Staff at the outbreak of the
war, though a Moltke, had none of the great qualities of his
uncle, nor indeed of any of his predecessors. A man of weak
nerves, he was not a worthy incumbent of the high military
ofB.ce since its inception by Gneisenau, a hundred years
before; but in justice to him it must be said that he had
protested energetically agamst his own appointment, feehng
himself in every way unfitted for it. His protests, however,
proved vain m the face of the historical mania of WilheLm II,
who was determined that he, too, should have his Moltke.^
Under the younger Moltke the Schlieffen plan was modified
in the West, and the strategic retreat in Alsace-Lorraine
abandoned. The provision for defensive measures in the
East remained unchanged.

In August 1914, therefore, the Eastern Front was lightly
held by the Eighth Army, numbering some eleven divisions

^ Prince Billow in Ins Memoirs (vol. ii pp 175-176) relates how, one
morning in the autumn of 1905, he was riding in the Berhn Hiippodrome
when he met Count Moltke, who told him with evident distress that the
Emperor had determined to make him Chief of the General StafE in suc-
session to Schhefien. Moltke seemed terrified at the idea of such a re-
sponsible post. “Everything in me dislikes the thought of the appoint-
ment”, he declared, “I do not lack personal courage but I lack the power
of rapid decision; I am too reflective; too scrupulous, or, if you like, too
conscientious for such a post. I lack the capacity for risking ail on a
single throw”.

IsTever was so tragically penetrating a self-analysis so fully justified by
subsequent events.

TANNENBERG AND BLESS

9

of infantry and one cavalry division, and commanded by
Colonel-General Max von Prittwitz und Gafiron,^ with
General Count von Waldersee (tbe nephew of Schliefien’s
predecessor) as Chief of Staff. Opposed to them was a
Russian army group commanded by General Jihnsky, con-
sisting of two armies under Generals Rennenkampf and
Samsonov, having between them thirty infantry and eight
cavalry divisions, which gave them a numerical superiority
over the Germans of almost three to one in infantry and of
eight to one in cavalry.

Strategic advantage, however, lay with the smaller force,
for, with their higMy efficient system of railways, the
Germans had a far greater mobihty than the Russians and
could manoeuvre behind the screen of the Masurian Lakes to
meet whichever invading army emerged first. It was, how-
ever, an essential feature of the Schlieffen plan that which-
ever Russian army was struck must be defeated and not
merely checked, and that the German forces should be able
to disengage themselves to meet the second enemy advance.

In accordance with German expectations, the northern
army under General Rennenkampf emerged first from the
line of the Lakes. It began its advance on August 17,
marching due west, in the expectation that Samsonov’s
southern army, coming up from the south-east, would
strike the German right flank two days after Rennen-
kampf’s attack. Prom the first, however, the Russian time-
table was at fault, not only between Rennenkampf and
Samsonov, but also between the units of Rennenkampf’s
own army, where a wide gap was left between the Third
and Fourth Army Corps. Discovering this. General von
Fran 9 ois, in command of the First German Corps, slipped
through it and attacked Rennenkampf from the rear;
causing widespread confusion and panic, he captured
3000 prisoners and withdrew without great loss.

This engagement, known as the battle of Stalluponen,

^ Who had achieved the uninspiring nickname of der dicke Boldat.

10

TANNENBEEG AND PLESS

was remail:ab]f‘ as tlie first of several occasions during the
campaign on which I'ran9ois disregarded his orders and
acted on his own initiative. This did not necessarily betoken
insubordination, for, in the tradition of the great Moltke,
corps commanders were left a maximum amount of liberty
within the limits of their general task; none the less, supreme
importance was attached to disciphne.^

In this particular case, General von Frangois, a man of
great independence of thought and of some impetuosity,
had always entertained certain mental reservations with
regard to the working of the Schlieffen plan. As com-
mander of the East Prussian Army Corps he regarded
himself as specially called upon to protect the province,
and he was unwilling to see a single East Prussian village
given over to the horrors of war. He was of opinion that
the task of frontier defence was to act on the ofiensive,
and, by attacking the Kussian forces, to keep them off the
frontier. He apparently disregarded the fact that, as a
result of his action, the whole army might have to move
to the support of his corps, and might therefore be obliged
to fight on the east side of the Masurian Lakes, thereby
forgoing the geographical advantages offered for defensive
warfare. The action of StaUuponen, though a success for
the First Corps, was an error of judgment on the part of
its commander, for, while large numbers of prisoners were
taken, the Germans also suffered losses in men and material,
and more particularly in attacking power, which should
have been husbanded against the decisive battle. Moreover
no real advantage was gained by delaying Eennenkampf;
on the contrary, it was to the German interest that he
should advance as rapidly as possible so that they might
crush him before the arrival of Samsonov. Nevertheless it

1 The military tradition of the Austrian Army was at variance with
the German. Here independent non-compliance with orders was re-
warded with the highest military decoration, the Order of Maria Theresa,
provided that such action met with success.

TANIOTNBERG AND PLESS

11

was the willingness of General von Fran§ois to accept
responsibility for independent action which, some ten days
later, was to play an important part in the German victory
of Tannenberg.

After the initial check at Stalluponen, the Eussian
advance continued, and by August 19 had reached Gum-
binnen. The German Commander-in-Chief, Prittwitz, would
have retired still further, but again Fran 9 ois’ impetuous
nature prevailed, and on the following morning a general
frontal attack was made on the Russian position. On the
right and left the German advance was successful, but in
the centre Mackensen’s Seventeenth Corps failed to reach
its objectives and was defeated and rolled back.

The nerves of the Army Commander and of his Chief of
StafE already showed signs of fraying, but, in the opinion of
the Quartermaster-General, General von Griinert, and of
the G.S.0.1, Colonel Hofimann, the action, despite Mack-
ensen’s defeat, was extremely favourable for the continua-
tion of the attack on the 21st, and should in their opinion
be fought out. Could they have known how entirely con-
ditions on the Russian side justified their opinion, they
might have been even more emphatic; for Rennenkampf’s
army was on the verge of collapse, and his staff, almost to
a man, was urging him to retreat.

On August 20, between six and seven o’clock in the
evening, news reached Grunert and Hoffmann that Sam-
sonov’s army had emerged south of the Masurian Lakes
and was threatening the German troops opposed to them,
namely, the Twentieth Corps, which, contrary to the
Schlieffen plan. Count von Waldersee had not ordered to
take part in the general German retiring movement. The
corps commander, however, was not at all disturbed by this
development, and reported that he was in a position to
fight a delaying action long enough to allow the battle of
Gmnbiimen to be brought to a successful finish.

The nervous state of the Axmj Commander and the Chief

12

TANNENBERG AND BLESS

of Staff may be judged by the fact that for a moment the
thought flashed through the minds of both Grunert and Hoff-
mann as to whether they should withhold this information
from their superiors. Such a thought was, of course, immedi-
ately rejected, but the effect of the news must have justified
their worst fears. Prittwitz’s nerves, which had never been
really under control, now cracked altogether, and he at once
gave orders for the breaking off of the action at Gumbinnen
and, overriding the strong protest of Pran§ois, Grunert, and
Hoffmann, ordered the general retirement of the Eighth
Army behind the Vistula. At the same time, without inform-
ing his staff of what he proposed to do, he telephoned hysteric-
ally to Imperial General Headquarters at Coblenz that he
could not even hold the hue of the Vistula unless strong rein-
forcements were sent to him immediately.

But now a change came over the High Command of the
Eighth Army, and the dominating genius of Lieut.-Col.
Hoffmann became the controlling influence. With quiet
tact and authority the G.S.0.1 explained to his agitated
superiors, who had no real conception as to how the general
retreat was to be effected, the impossibihty of executing
their last order in toto. He demonstrated that the with-
drawal to the Vistula could not be carried out without
severe fighting. The troops had to be disengaged from
contact with Rennenkampf’s army, and the left flank of
Samsonov’s army must be checked since it was nearer to
the Vistula than the Eighth Army. He suggested a con-
centration of forces for an attack against Samsonov in
order to carry out the withdrawal.

In face of this cool reasoning Prittwitz and Waldersee
regained a httle courage, and, by half-past nine on the even-
ing of the 20th, Hoffmann, having quelled the panic at
headquarters, was able to issue orders in accordance with
his own proposals, namely to disengage from Rennen-
kampf, leaving a Ught screen to mask the operation, and to
concentrate the Eighth Army at a point from whence a

TANNENBERG AND PLESS

13

blow could be struck later against either Rennenkampf or
Samsonov.

But though, his courage had in part returned, Prittwitz
had not yet entirely mastered his agitation, for he omitted
to acquaint Imperial General Headquarters of his change of
plan, leaving them in the belief that the retreat behind the
Vistula was in progress. There was in fact no further com-
mrmication between the Eighth Army and Coblenz until the
evening of August 22, when it was announced that a new
Commander and Chief of Stafi were on their way to Army
Headquarters. The orders recalling Prittwitz and Waldersee
did not arrive until some few hours later.

3

The scene now changes to Coblenz on the evening of
August 20, where the Chief of the Imperial StafE, already
harassed and ill, hstened with dismay to the stricken voice
of the Eighth Army Commander in East Prussia entreating
reinforcements to enable him to hold the line of the Vistula,
behind which he was retiring. Imperial G.H.Q. remained in
ignorance of the fact that this unjustifiable panic was
almost immediately overcome and that the order for a
general retirement was countermanded, but Moltke re-
ceived the perfectly correct impression that his lieutenant
in East Prussia was psychologically a beaten man and that
neither he nor his Chief of StafE was in any way fitted to
remain in active command.

The question arose who should succeed them, and at
once the name of his former Director of Operations, the new
hero, Erich Ludendorfit, who had recently taken over the
command of an infantry brigade and had been decorated by
the Emperor with the Pour h Merite cross for capturing,
almost single-handed, the citadel of Liege, presented itself
to Moltke for Chief of the Stafi of the Eighth Army. But
whose name should appear as General Commanding? No

0

14

TAJSTNENBEEG AND PLESS

one very greatly cared wto should be the “dear old Ex-
cellency” whose business it would be to shield, or reflect,
the shining light of Ludendorff’s genius, but there had to
be someone.

The names of retired army corps commanders were dis-
cussed by the circle of junior staff of&cers, one of whom
suggested that a distant cousin of his, Beneckendorfi^ by
name, was ehgible for the post and had the added advan-
tage of being conveniently at Hanover, on the direct route
to the east. Moltke recollected the long record of yeoman
service and stafi experience, as well as the sturdy bulk of
the General. No weak nerves there; and a sure rock against
which the “shngs and arrows of outrageous fortune” could
avail nothing. There ought to be no delay, the Staff sug-
gested; the Emperor’s approval should be obtained at once.
This was impossible before the following morning, but no
objection was raised by Wflhelm II to the suggested ap-
pointment, and the decisive message was sent by telegraph,
as nobody seemed quite sure whether the thrifty habits of
the General had allowed him, at that time, the luxury of a
private telephone.

In such deliberations passed the 21st of August, and on
the 22nd, at 9 a.m., Ludendorff at Wavre received the news
of his appointment, together with the information that his
Chief would be General von Beneckendorff und Hindenburg,
though at the moment it was not known if he would accept
the command. Personal letters from the Chief of the Imperial
General Staff and the Quartermaster-General accompanied
the official appointment. “A difficult task is being entrusted
to you, one more difficult perhaps than the capture of
Liege”, wrote Moltke. “I know of no other person whom I
trust as implicitly as yourself. Perhaps you may succeed in

^ It was not until after Tannenberg tbat the General was known by
the single name of ‘‘Hindenburg”; hitherto he had been called Benecken-
dorS and had appeared under the letter B in the Army List and in
directories.

TAUNENBEBG AND PLESS

15

saving the position in the East, . . . Your energy is such
that you may still succeed in averting the worst.” And
General von Stein added his appeal, “Your place is on the
Eastern Front. . . . The safety of the country demands it.”

It is clear then that, from the first, the Imperial High
Command relied upon LudendorS rather than Hindenburg
to avert disaster in the East, and, if possible, turn defeat
into victory. No such personal messages of confidence ac-
companied the succession of telegrams which were on their
way to Hanover, during the time that Ludendorfi was
motoring with all speed from Wavre to Coblenz. Hinden-
burg had been recalled from retirement as a figure-head
who would inspire pubhc confidence and act as a foil to
Ludendorfi’s genius, but the Imperial High Command re-
posed their confidence in the Chief of Stafi.

Ludendorfi reached Coblenz on August 22 at 6 p.m., and
received from Moltke and Stein a resume of all that had
occurred in the East up to the last telephonic conversation
with Prittwitz. The new Chief of Stafi of the Eighth Army
at once began to issue orders direct to the units of the
command, assuming, with his incomplete knowledge of the
final phases of the situation, that the Army Headquarters
Stafi was out of the picture. He was frankly delighted with
his new position and was fuUy aware that a rare chance
was ofiered to the strategist.

But the point of absorbing interest is that Ludendorfi at
Coblenz, hundreds of miles away from the theatre of opera-
tions, was issuing, on the 22nd, orders almost identical with
those which Hofimann had issued on the spot two days
earlier, immediately after he had allayed the panic of his
superiors. Both Ludendorfi and Hofimann realized, in-
dependently, that Samsonov’s army was, for the moment,
the greater menace and must be dealt with first, and the
orders which both of them issued aimed at the concentration
of the Eighth Army to meet this immediate danger. That
these two men came to the same conclusions to meet the

16

TANNENBERG AND PLESS

situation is a signal proof of the high standard of training in
the German General Staff, and it is di£S.cult to know to
whom to allot the greater share of praise; to Hoffmann,
who had to cope not only with the enemy, but with a
querulous and incompetent Army Commander and Chief of
Staff, or to Ludendorff, who assumed the responsibility for
issuing orders without reference to the new Army Com-
mander, whoever he might be; for it was not until eight
o’clock in the evening, some time after Ludendorff’s final
instructions had been despatched, that he learned that
Hmdenburg had in fact accepted the command of the Eighth
Army and that they were to proceed together that night to
the east.

On August 23, at 3 a.m., Hindenburg stood, stolid and
impassive, upon the station platform at Hanover awaiting
the special train which was to take him to his new command.
It had taxed even the capacities of a Prussian ofidcer’s wife
to get him ready in the ten hours at her disposal between
the receipt of the first telegram and the moment of his
departure. All sorts of intimate details had to be attended
to. The General had grown stouter during his retirement,
and Frau von Hindenburg had to let out his tunics and
breeches here and there. Even now he stood in the blue
peace time uniform of a Prussian general and not in the
field-grey equipment of the German army at war.^ But all
had been accomplished somehow, and, his farewells over,
he stood waiting on the threshold of his second “life”.
It was to close five years later, in 1919, in the gloom of
Germany’s defeat and humihation, but with Hindenburg’s
personal reputation enhanced a thousandfold and his name
a legend throughout Germany.

The special train steamed into the dimly hghted station,

1 General Ludendorfi’s wife accompanied him on the train from
Cohlenz as far east as Kiistrm, and to her Hindenburg deplored his
lack of equipment. It seemed at the moment to be his chief concern.
Cf. Margarethe Ludendorff, My Married Life with Ludendorff, p. 84.

TANNENBERO AND PRESS

17

just an engine and two coaches; a tall military figure in
regulation field-grey alighted and stifidy saluted Hindenhurg.

“Major-General Ludendorff, your Excellency, by order of
August 21 of the All-Highest’s Mihtary Cabinet, appointed
Chief of Staff of the Eighth Army.”

They exchanged salutes and handshakes and entered the
train, which continued on its journey eastward.

In this simple, correct manner was inaugurated that
extraordinary relationship between Hindenburg and Luden-
dorff which was so outstanding a feature of this period of
Hindenburg’s life. In many ways they were antithetical yet
complementary. Hindenburg was modest and retiring,
Ludendorff arrogant and egotistical — towards men at any
rate. Hindenburg, in his account of the years of their partner-
ship, uses the pronoun “we” throughout, while Ludendorff’s
memoirs are characterized by the constantly recurring use
of “I”. Hindenburg was a man of slow but accurate judg-
ment, and he never lost his nerve, while Ludendorff,
certainly the more brilliant, and with a swifter grasp of the
situation in the final analysis, was prone to moments of
panic. In their combination Ludendorff was the arm, and in
some cases, not always the happiest, the head also, and
Hindenburg often permitted himself to approve suggestions
without complete assurance of what he did. Yet he pos-
sessed great insight, and his mature and considered judg-
ments often restrained Ludendorff’s unstable and less
perfectly balanced temper.

Hindenburg himself has described their relations as “those
of a happy marriage”, but in that marriage Ludendorff was
the dominating husband, for he possessed a strong wiU, the
will of a fanatic, which drives straight to its goal, without
a thought for those who stand in its way. From the mili tary
aspect the combination was vastly effective, but pohtically
it was most unfortunate, for while in the direction of opera-
tions their two minds worked in complementary accord, in
the political intrigues of the later years Ludendorff made

18 TANKBNBEEG AND PLESS

use of his chief’s name and position in the most unwarrant-
able manner.

But in these August days of 1914 this “marriage” was but
in the honeymoon stage, and within an hour of their de-
parture from Hanover, Ludendorfi had won the complete
approval of his chief for the orders he had issued to the
Eighth Army from Coblenz and for the plan of campaign
which he was already maturing. By the time they reached
Headquarters at Marienburg on the following afternoon, the
most complete sense of mutual confidence prevailed between
them.

4

Few battles in history have given rise to so many myths
as Tannenberg. According to one popular legend, to which
Mr. John Buchan, in his History of the Great War, gave con-
siderable publicity in England, Hindenburg had worked out
his plans for this battle twenty-five years before, when as a
captain he was G.S.0.2 to the Ficst Division. He is said to
have explored the country and averted the carrying-out of
schemes for draining the lakes and marshes in that district,
and now apphed his long-cherished plan of driving the
Russians into these death-traps of Nature, where thou-
sands died a horrible death of suffocation. Another version
describes him as hurrying across Germany in his special train
from Hanover to Marienburg, receiving reports at wayside
stations and issuing his orders accordingly as he went along.

All these “colourful” stories are mythology; Hindenburg
himself disposes of the first legend in a single sentence:
“Before this day [August 24] I had never seen the battle-
field”. And both Ludendorfi and Hofimann have left it on
record — ^Ludendorfi in reply to a direct enquiry from the
Spanish military attache — ^that Tannenberg was not fought
according to a long-conceived and prepared plan. As regards
the second fable, the facts already related show how little
truth there is m it.

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TANNENBERG AND PLESS

19

Wlien the new High Command of the Eighth Army
reached their headquarters at Marienburg, on the evening
of August 23, they found, much to their surprise, that all
their orders had been anticipated by Lieut.-Col. Hoffmann
and that the disposition of troops was already in progress.
They had no fresh instructions to issue: their orders were
simply in effect to “carry on”. Probably neither Hindenbuxg
nor Ludendorff was entirely dehghted at the part played by
their G.S.0.1 in the prehminary preparations for the battle
or in its subsequent development. Hoffmann’s independent
action had, to a certain extent, stolen their thunder, and
his name does not occur in the four hundred and fifty pages
of Hindenburg’s bulky memoirs, while Ludendorff gives him
but scant credit for his timely action and forethought,
which had unquestionably saved the situation at a most
critical moment. Hoffmann, on the other hand, is very
much more generous. He makes out the best case possible
for Prittwitz, giving him more than his fair share of
responsibility for the change of orders on August 20, and
is full of praise for his two immediate superiors in their
conduct of the battle.

The task before the reconstituted German Eighth Army
was clear, and there was no alternative course. Samsonov
had not only to be defeated, but annihilated, in order to
give them a free hand to complete the defeat of Rennen-
kampf before he had time to recover fully from the shock
received at Gumbinnen, and before he could move to the
support of his colleague. Time, therefore, was the essence of
the contract, and, in the plan which Hoffmann outlined,
and which Ludendorff adopted, this factor was fully taken
into account.

It was proposed to leave a weak but well-masked force,
consisting of a cavalry division and some reserves and
militia, to hold Rennenkampf in check, and with the
remainder of the Eighth Army to envelop and destroy
Samsonov. The plan was essentially a bold one, for should

20

TAlSTNENBERa AISTD PLESS

Rennenkampf discover tke weakness of the force opposed
to him, or should he receive an appeal for help from
Samsonov, he could with ease sweep aside the German
cavalry screen and by forced marches to the south-west
come upon his enemy’s rear.

But Hoffmann, in drawing up his plans, counted on one
psychological factor, of which he alone at German Head-
q^uarters was informed. This knowledge gave him added
confidence and reheved him from those agonies of anxiety
which attacked his chiefs. In the years of his retirement in
Berlin after the war, it was one of General Hoffmann’s chief
delights to retell the story of his special information.

In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 Hoffmann, then
a staff captain, was attached as an observer to the J apanese
armies in Manchuria, and as such had his first experiences
of modern warfare. What, however, proved of supreme
value to him was an incident retold to him by his ^opposite
number” with the Imperial Russian Armies. In the course
of the battle of Liauyang, during the Mukden campaign,
the commander of the Siberian Cossack Division defending
the Yentai coal-mines found himself unable to hold his
position and blamed his failure upon the inactivity and bad
leadership of the divisional commander supporting him.
In the bitterness of the general defeat the two officers,
who had been keen rivals from their days at the Mihtary
Academy, met on the railway platform at Mukden, and
reproached each other with acrid recrimination. The
dispute became heated, the Siberian Cossack Commander
knocked the other down, and the disheartened army was
treated to the inspiring picture of two major-generals
roUing on the ground before the eyes of their scandalized
staffs, who eventually tore them apart. The name of the
commander of the Siberian Cossack Division was Samsonov,
and that of his rival Rennenkampf.

The Tsar forbade a duel, but the former rivalry had
developed into a passion for revenge, and during the next

TAIWENBEEG AND PLESS

21

ten years Hofimann kept hims elf informed of the progress
of the quarrel. His latest information in July 1914 was
that the two remained unreconciled, and when he knew
that they were opposed to him, he felt sure that Samsonov
would now be paid out for that box on the ears ten years
before. Hofimann, as he told the story, would add with a
chuckle, sipping from his inevitable tumbler of neat cognac,
that, “if the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-
fields of Eton, the battle of Tannenberg was lost on the
railway platform at Mukden”.

Thus the boldness of the German scheme was tempered
with an inner knowledge of the personalities of the Russian
commanding ofi&cers, and, while this does not detract from
the excellence of the conception, it at least explains how
Hofimann was enabled to maintain his cool judgment at
a moment when Ludendorfi, and even, in some degree,
Hindenburg, fell a prey to nervous anxiety.

Two other factors favoured the German plans. In the
pocket-book of a dead Russian Stafi Officer had been found
notes on the general movements of both Rennenkampf’s
and Samsonov’s armies, evidently made at Jilinsky’s
Army Group Headquarters, and this valuable information
showed the General Stafi of the Eighth Army how far
their opponents had departed from the scheduled time-
table. Added to this was the almost incredible fact that the
Headquarters Stafis of JiUnsky, Rennenkampf, and Sam-
sonov communicated with each other by wireless messages
sent out en clair so that the operators at German Head-
quarters could keep close touch with every move of the
enemy.

August 24 and 25 were devoted by the Germans to final
preparations and dispositions of troops for a decisive
struggle. The plan of operations was simple in conception
but difficult of execution. The right and left wings were
strengthened at the expense of the centre, which, lightly
held, constituted the bait held out to Samsonov to tempt

22

TANNENBERG AND BLESS

him to attack. By the evening of the 25th all was in order
for the morrow, and Hindenbnrg was able to say to his staff,
“Gentlemen, our preparations are so well in hand that we
can sleep soundly to-night”.

The drama upon which the curtain rose on August 26
was not in one self-contained act but in a number of de-
tached scenes. The stage, which stretched over more than
sixty miles of East Prussian territory, covered ground which
prevented the formation of a continuous battle-line. The
battle called, therefore, for individual initiative on the part
of the various corps commanders and is particularly remark-
able for the success of these independent actions.

Samsonov fell headlong into the temptingly baited trap
and launched a terrible assault against the weak German
centre. But the position was held by the Twentieth Corps
composed of troops drawn from the very district in which
they fought, Allenstein men fighting for the defence of
their own homesteads, and though the line writhed and
shook beneath the weight of successive Russian onslaughts,
it did not break. Meanwhile Frangois on the right and
Mackensen and Below on the left were driving forward
against the Russian flanks. Towards evening the German
centre abandoned its defensive tactics and took the offen-
sive, making contact with Fran§ois and enveloping Sam-
sonov’s main body in such a manner that it had no alterna-
tive but to retire eastwards.

But though the battle progressed favourably, at General
Headquarters the joy of success was overshadowed by
anxiety as to the movements of Rennenkampf. Ludendorff
was showing signs of nervous exhaustion — the joy of
victory was utterly spoilt for him by the burden of
anxiety. Even the stolid Hindenburg felt the strain. “Is it
surprising”, he asks, “that misgivings filled many a heart?
that firm resolution began to yield to vacillation, and that
doubts crept in where a clear vision had hitherto pre-
vailed?” At G.H.Q. only Hoffmann, sure in his inner know-

TANITENBBRG AM) PLESS

23

ledge and confident in his own belief, maintained his equa-
nimity and observed, perhaps even with a tinge of secret
enjoyment, the mental discomfiture of his chiefs.

But as the day wore on it seemed that even the worst
anxieties might be fulfilled. The German wireless operators
reported to the High Command message after message
from Samsonov, who, realizing the magnitude of the dis-
aster that was about to overwhelm him, was filling the air
with his demands, prayers, and entreaties to Kennenkampf
to come to his assistance. But the Russian First Army was
skirmishing outside Konigsberg. That ten-year-old box on
the ear still tingled. Rennenkampf did not move.

Suddenly, however, during the evening of the 26th, the
moment of supreme crisis occurred at German Headquarters.
It was announced that a strong force of Russian cavalry
was in movement from the south and threatening Francois,
and at the same moment it was reported by an air-scout
that one of Rennenkampf’s corps was in motion to the rear
of Mackensen’s enveloping force on the left. At this de-
cisive moment Ludendorfi’s nerves gave way completely;
he wished to recall Frangois, and call ofi the operation
closing the ring around Samsonov. Hindenburg rose mag-
nificently to the crisis, his courage and composure were un-
shaken, and, supported by Hoffmann, who now contributed
his knowledge of the existing relations between Samsonov
and Rennenkampf, and Lieut. -Col. Hell, Chief of Staff of the
Twentieth Corps, he refused to be stampeded into hasty
and panicky action. “We overcame the inward crisis”, are
his own words on the subject, “and adhered to our original
intention, turning in full strength to effect its realization by
attack.”

In the handling of this crisis hes Hindenburg’s real claim
to fame at Tannenberg. Unhke Prittwitz, he was undeterred
by impending danger, and his more phlegmatic nature
was of greater value than Ludendorff’s more tempera-
mental genius. Had the Chief of Staff been allowed his way.

24

TANNENBERG AND PLESS

Samsonov’s army would have escaped, even though shat-
tered and decimated, into the forests of Poland. By refusing
to allow plans, which had been carefully considered and
adopted, to be hastily changed or abandoned, Hindenburg
ensured the encirclement of Samsonov and rendered cer-
tain his complete destruction. Moreover, overwhelming
justification of the wisdom of Hmdenburg’s action was pro-
vided next morning when it was shown that the advance of
Eennenkampf’s corps was but the figment of the airman’s
over-excited imagination, and that Franyois’ independence
of mind rendered him more than capable of taking measures
for his own safety.

The battle continued with great fierceness throughout
August 27, 28, and 29, but the final issue was never again
in doubt. In every way the German generalship and staff
work was superior to the Eussian, who were “out-thought”
on all points. But the Eussian army fought with great
gallantry, and, indeed, had the quality of leadership been
equal to the fighting quality of the troops, the result of the
battles in East Prussia might have been very different. For
Samsonov, deserted by his colleague, fought with the fury
of despair to break from the enveloping movement which,
inexorable as the march of time, was slowly but surely
compassing his destruction. Agam and again he drove hke
a hull against the ring, but to no purpose. On the evening
of the 29th Mackensen on the left and Francois on the
right joined hands and the encirchng movement was com-
plete. Fresh Eussian forces attempted on the following day
to break the circle from outside, but without success, and
hour by hour the ring of fire around the Eussian masses,
crowded closely together, swaying this way and that, mill-
ing against each other, and ceasing to have any military
formation, became closer and narrower.

By evening all was over and the Eussian forces had sus-
tained what General Sir Edmund Ironside has described as
“the greatest defeat suffered by any of the combatants

TAI^NENBERG AND PLESS

26

during the war.” The dead, lying in heaps and swaths,
nunabered over 100,000; the number of prisoners taken was
no less. Three whole army corps had been destroyed, and
the small body of troops that remained outside the German
circle was in panic-stricken flight towards the frontier.

As the German search-parties scoured the field they found
amongst a momid of dead the body of a white-haired
general offlcer, a bullet wound in his head, a revolver in
his hand. In the last moment of overwhelming disaster
Samsonov had taken the only course which to him seemed
compatible with honour.

But for the weary and victorious Eighth Army there
was no repose, no respite to enjoy their victory. Eennen-
kampf, now reinforced with new corps from Finland and
Siberia, still hung like a menacing cloud in the north.
There were signs that he had begun to realize the enormity
of his conduct in not supporting Samsonov, and to be
appalled at the colossal dimensions of the defeat to
Russian arms which his desertion had caused. That feud
between the Russian army commanders had already cost the
Tsar 200,000 men in killed and prisoners and was to be the
cause of the destruction of many thousands more. Had
Rennenkampf’s resolution been as great as his resources,
he coidd have attacked the Eighth Army while it lay at
the moment of its greatest weakness, exhausted and
crowded together on the battlefield of Tannenberg, but he
allowed the Germans a whole week to disentangle their units,
to rest and bring up reinforcements, and to concentrate
afresh and mature a plan whereby to destroy him.

In the preparation of this plan Ludendorfi and Hoff-
mann co-operated closely, Hoffmann being “proud that
some of my ideas have been included”. Rennenkampf,
with fresh reserves approaching and a number of new
divisions already up, was in a strong defensive position
between the Masurian Lakes and the Kurische Haff which
did not allow of an encirchng movement as at Tannenberg.

26

TAIWENBERG AND PLESS

It was therefore proposed to make a frontal assault upon
tkis position with four corps, whilst the two corps of
Francois and Mackensen pushed through the lake region
on the Russian left and attacked his rear.

The action known as the first battle of the Masurian
Lakes began on September 8, and, while the German
assault met with little success, the flanking movement
made good progress. The same was true of the following
day. Rennenkampf repulsed the attack in his front, but
Frangois and Mackensen had moved still further round his
left wing. Rennenkampf’s nerve now failed him; terrified
at the possibihty of being caught in a similar trap to
Samsonov’s, despite his numerical superiority he abandoned
his strong position and ordered a general retreat. Beginning
on September 10, this movement continued until the 14th,
by which time it had degenerated into a rout, with the
German artillery blowing great gaps in the tightly packed
masses before them. By the 18th Rennenkampf’s army
was once more on Russian sod, having lost 145,000 men
in casualties and prisoners. It had been in East Prussia
just twenty-eight days.

5

Two questions now present themselves. What was
Hindenburg’s part in the victory of Tannenberg, and was
he or someone else responsible for that victory?

In the prehminary preparations for the battle he had
no part at aU. Here the credit must be divided between
Hofimann and Ludendorff, for the almost identical orders
which they issued were given on August 20 and 22 respect-
ively, that is to say, before Hindenburg’s appointment to
the command of the Eighth Army became operative. In
the immediate disposition of the troops for battle he also
bore no part. Here Hofimann suggested and Ludendorfi
endorsed a certain plan of campaign, the orders for the
execution of which were later signed by Hindenburg. “I

TANNENBEEG AM) PLESS

27

realized that one of my principal tasks was, as far as
possible, to give free scope to the intellectual powers, the
almost superhuman capacity for work and untiriug resolu-
tion of my Chief of Stafi, and if necessary to clear the way
for him”, wrote Hindenburg of Ludendorfi at this moment;
and Ludendorfi has left the complementary statement,
“General von Hindenburg had always agreed to my sug-
gestions and gladly accepted the responsibihty of consenting
to them”.

Hindenburg’s greatest contribution to the victory lies in
his never-failing capacity and wilhngness to accept respon-
sibihty, a feature of his character which became less
apparent in his later hfe. It was Hindenburg who had
accepted the prepared plans of Ludendorfi and Hoffmann; it
was Hindenburg who had signed the battle orders; it was
Hindenburg who, at the critical moment, on the evening
of August 26, refused to be stampeded by Ludendorff’s
nervous brain-storm; it was upon Hindenburg that the
final responsibihty for success or failure rested; and it was
he who signed the telegraphic report to the Emperor
announcing the tremendous news of victory.

And in effect was this not exactly the function which he
had been sent to fulfil? In making the original appointments
on August 22, Moltke had counted upon Ludendorfi for
genius and upon Hindenburg for character. It was im-
possible to risk a repetition of the Prittwitz-Waldersee
regime in which the Chief of Staff and the Army Com-
mander had lost their heads at the moment of great crisis.
Hindenburg had been sent to East Prussia as a symbol and
a foil. In these capacities he justified to the full the judg-
ment of those who selected him for the position. He was
the solid rock upon which the edifice of the High Command
was built, but apart from this very important function he
had little or no part in the actual victory.

The Emperor was suitably grateful in his rewards.
Hindenburg received the order Pour le Merite and Luden-

28

TANNENBERG AND PLESS

dorfE the Iron Cross, which, he is at pains to point out, had
not at that time dwindled in value as it did later in the
war. Hoffmann too received the Iron Cross, and writes in
his diary that he never expected to receive this finest of
all military decorations by sitting at the end of a telephone-
line. “However,” he adds, “I reahze that there must he
someone who keeps his nerve, and by brute determination
and the will to victory overcomes difficulties, panics and
such-like nonsense.” Not for nothing had Hoffmann seen
Prittwitz, Waldersee, and Ludendorff wilt beneath the
burden of anxiety.

Hoffmann’s part in the victory is indeed one of the most
important, for his cool courage and calm determination had
been a pillar of strength to both the Prittwitz-Waldersee and
the Hindenburg-Ludendorff combinations. It was he indeed
who gave the battle its historic name. While dictating the
final report for Hindenburg’s signature, Ludendorff had
dated it from Progenau. Hoffmann suggested that iustead
the despatch should be headed from the httle village of
Tannenberg, which had formed the focal poiat of the fine
held by the Twentieth Corps against the earlier attacks
of Samsonov, and which is sacred to every Prussian; for it
is the site of the battle where five centuries before the
marshalled chivalry of the Order of Teutonic Knights, in
which had fought a Beneckendorff and a Hindenburg, had
been ann ih ilated almost to a man by an advancing host of
Lithuanians and Slavs. Now the memory of that terrible
defeat had been wiped out, and a Slav host had gone down
to destruction before a Teutonic force commanded by a
descendant of the Teutonic Knights. The historic answer
was complete, but it was Hoffmann, a Hessian, who thought
of it.

As Hoffmann himself points out, the final success was in
great measure due to a succession of most important events
resulting, not from the orders of the High Command, but
from the individual initiative of the subordinate leaders. Of

TAKNEKBEEG AND PLESS

29

these the most sahent example is that of General von Francois .
At a point which was decisive for the brilliant success of the
battle, he indisputably did a great service in putting off the
attack rmtil he had in position all his fighting troops, and
more especially his artillery. If he had advanced a day
earlier against the prepared Russian position, as the High
Command wanted him to do, when his troops had been only
partly concentrated, and without extensive artillery pre-
parations, the all-important flanking movement on the right
would almost certainly have met with failure. Fortunate,
too, in their results were the actions taken by Franjois
and Mackensen to make contact and thereby complete
the encirclement of the Russians, and of great importance
was Mackensen’s independent decision to swing his force
round at AUenstein, and thereby cut off the enemy to the
east.

It is easier to say who lost the battle than who won
it. The inferior generalship of the Russian armies, the
incredible conduct of Rermenkampf in placing personal
revenge before national honour, the criminal carelessness of
the headquarters staffs in sending out their wireless com-
munications en clair, and the failure of both generals to
utilize their numerical superiority and the strength of their
position, all render the magnitude of the German victory
more comprehensible.

The truth is to be found more nearly than anywhere else
in Hoffmann’s own analysis that, whereas the battle of
Tarmenberg had been lost on the railway station of Mukden,
responsibihty for the German victory was not due to any
one individual.

The people of Germany in the late summer of 1914 had
no such difficulty in determining the victor of Tannenberg.
They gave their verdict with no uncertain voice and the
hero of their choice was the man henceforth called Hinden-

D

30

TANNENBBRG AND PLBSS

burg. There is scarcely a parallel in history for so meteoric
a rise from obscurity to idohzation. Within a week his name
had become a household word. Yet so little had he been
known before that people had no clear idea of what he
looked like.^ Such few photographs of him as existed rose to
a premium, and an army of press photographers was des-
patched to the East for more recent pictures. Most of them
returned empty-handed, but the square head, the heavy face,
and upturned moustaches were soon to be seen in every
home in Germany. The legend of Tannenberg had grown
overnight and it increased to prodigious proportions after
the battle of the Masurian Lakes and the final freeing of
East Prussia. Hoch Rindenhurg! resounded in every Bier-
halle and Weinstube throughout the country. In Hanover,
where he had hved for three years in obscurity, people asked
each other in the streets who he was, but the city placed
his name at the head of its honour roll of citizens. The town-
ship of Zabrze, in Silesia, went further and changed its
name to Hindenburg. Eield postmen, with unerring instinct,
began to deliver to his headquarters the correspondence
addressed to “The Most Popular Man in Germany”, while
shopkeepers vied in stocking “Hiadenburg” cigars, boots,
and ties, and restaurants called their choicest dishes after
him.

With the approach of winter it was rumoured that he was
imweU, and he was deluged with letters advising this and
that treatment and cure. Country housewives sent him the
prescriptions of nostrums which had been in their families
for generations and pharmacies informed him that he had
been placed on their free-lists for life. During the first

^ So unfamiliar waa the face of their army commander to his own
troops that when, after the battle of the Masurian Lakes, he was returning
to his headquarters at Insterhurg after a day’s hunting, Hindenburg’s
car was stopped in the market-place where preparations were being
made for a service of thanksgiving and he was forced to make a detour.
Those who were about to celebrate deliverance from the Russian occupa-
tion had not recognized their dehverer!

TAKNENBEEG AM) PLESS

31

Cliristmas of tlie war he received over six hundred gifts of
wine, tobacco, and pipes alone, in addition to thousands of
other presents. Old ladies sent bim goloshes, and young ones
pillows stufEed with their own hair.

He was taken to the warm heart of his people and became
afiectionately known as “Unser Hindenburg” . At once there
sprung up about his hfe a crop of anecdotes, the majority of
them false, and many of them hoary with years. Amongst
these was the remark attributed to every great captain in
history who fought a winter campaign, from Hannibal
downwards: “Every day I walk two hours against the wind
so that I may have some idea of what my soldiers are
suffering”. To the end of his hfe he was the victim of the
ingenious inventor of “good stories”, the tone of which be-
came progressively more bitter.

Amongst this welter of hysterical adulation one man re-
mained unmoved and unimpressed. Hindenburg himself
was never deceived by the legend of his own greatness. He
at least knew the truth of Tannenberg, and knew also the
worth of pubhc adoration. “Remember,” he admonished
his friends who crowded about him with congratulations,
“if Tannenberg had not gone well for us, there would have
been a name cursed by all Germans through eternity: the
name of Hindenburg.”

But he could not fight against his destiny, and official
quarters were quick to take advantage of his popularity to
distract pubhc attention from the position m the West,
though they were well aware that the success of Tannenberg
was of mi n or importance beside the failure of the Marne.

For the campaign m France and Belgium had failed
signally. Paris was safe and the race to the sea had been
abandoned. Moltke, “le general rmlgre lui”, had proved
unequal to the task of conducting a campaign on a grand
scale. He had neither the resolution nor the moral courage to
withstand the anxiety of waiting, nor the mili tary judg-
ment to pierce the fog of uncertainty which besets all

32

TANNENBERG AND BLESS

modern commanders. In modifying the SchlieffenPlan in the
south, he had violated his predecessor’s cardinal prin-
ciple ever repeated till his death, “See that the right wing is
strong”. For, abandoning the plan of a strategic retirement
in Alsace-Lorraine, Moltke had reinforced his left at the
espense of his right. That wing, the key point in Schlieffen’s
plan, was not sufficiently strong to perform its task, and
gradually a gap opened between the advancing armies of
Kluck and Billow.

By September 4 — at the time when in East Prussia the
Eighth Army, having annihilated Samsonov, was turning
northward to destroy Rennenkampf — Moltke, who had sat
for days at Imperial Headquarters wrapped in nervous de-
pression and gloomy reflections,^ realized that, by rein-
forcing the Lorraine front and endeavouring to break
through between Toul and Epinal, he had so weakened his
right wing that the enveloping movement from the north,
the fundamental idea upon which Schliefien had based the
battle in the West, could not succeed. UnweU, unhappy,
and completely lacking in self-confidence, Moltke lost Ms
head and despatched one of Ms stafi officers, Lieut.-Col.
Hentsch, to Bulow and Kluck, with authority, if he saw
fit to do so, to give verbal orders to retreat. TMs in
fact he did, overruHng their protests, and in that moment
there vamshed Germany’s hope of a rapid war of conquest.

In relation to the situation in the West, therefore, the
German victory in the East was of very secondary import-
ance, In the brain of the great Schliefien, whose death in
1912, from a septic varicose ulcer, was the greatest blow
that the German military machine sustained, the Eastern
theatre of war was subordinate in importance to the West.
The Russian armies were to be destroyed, not in the hope of
securing an early peace, but in order to leave the German

1 “Pliysically, Moltke is a wreck,” wrote Grand-Admiral von Tirpitz
from Luxemburg at this time; “it is such a mistake not to send him
home as a heart and kidney patient, which as a matter of fact he is.”

TANNENBEEG AND PLESS

33

forces free to figlit and win the decisive battle in France and
Belgium. After a false start, the Eastern part of the Schlieffen
Plan had been accomphshed, but its success was very greatly
robbed of its value by the fact that in the West the High
Command had failed to fight and win a decisive battle.

Moltke’s failnre had lost for Germany her chance of
winning the war, for, from the autumn of 1914, the Western
Front became an outer bastion of a besieged fortress from
whence troops issued from time to time to repel attack or to
effect a sortie. The serious hope of breaking through had
vanished, and, though the war might continue for years, it
could only be a question of holding out and not of achieving
victory.

It is uncertain whether the German High Command
realized fully at that moment the grave importance of the
failure of the Marne. They were, however, concerned with
finding some method of diverting popular interest from
failure to success, and for this purpose the sudden rise of
Hindenburg as a national idol was most opportune. Every
possible ofiicial means was taken to stimulate and foster
the enthusiasm, and the victories on the East Prussian
Front were invested with a halo whoUy disproportionate to
their importance. The Emperor was prevailed upon to write
a laudatory letter to the new hero, universities were en-
couraged to confer honorary degrees upon him, and munici-
palities their honorary citizenships.

The effect was all that could be desired. Pubhc confidence
raUied and optimism was regained. Hindenburg becamemot
only a hero, but a living symbol of embattled Germany, a
star to which his country now could look with hope and
certainty to guide them through war to victory.

7

But it required more even than the glorification of
Hindenburg in the East to restore the confidence of German

34

TANNENBERG AND PLESS

arms in the West. By September 12 it had become evident
to all that Moltke’s mental and physical state rendered it
impossible for him to continue a moment longer in the
vitally important position of Chief of the General Staff/
and once again, and for the last tune, the Emperor made use
of his unfettered authority in the selection of a successor.
His choice fell upon the Prussian Minister for War, Lieut.-
Gen. Erich von Falkenhayn, who received his appointment
on September 14, and, at his own request, retained his
position in the Prussian Cabinet.

The change in the High Command, which was made purely
on the grounds of the most urgent necessity and was mainly
directed towards restoring the confidence of the head-
quarters stafi and the army and corps commanders, was
cloaked in the greatest secrecy. Moltke still remained at Head-
quarters in an anomalous position, and as late as October 10
the Emperor at a banquet at G.H.Q. at CharleviUe publicly
toasted his success! * And though his name was gradually

^ The German Crown Prince recalls his alarm and surprise at Moltke’s
sudden appearance at his headquarters on this date, “completely broken
down and literally struggling to suppress his tears. Accordmg to his im-
pressions, the entire German army had been defeated and was being
rapidly and unceasingly rolled back” [Memoirs^ p. 169).

2 A tragic picture of the fallen general at this period has been left by
the Crown Prince. “It was in the headquarters at CharleviUe; he had
already been removed from his command; I found him aged by years;
he was poring over maps m a little room in the prefecture — a bent and
broken man . . . later he sank into a morbid search after the reasons for
his evil fate, and tried to discover exonerations and justifications for his
failure, losmg himself in all kinds of barren mysticism. In the end he
died at Berlin of a broken heart” (Memoirs, p. 172).

This is not, however, an entirely fair picture of General von Moltke,
for he was not only physically ill but spiritually distressed. He was con-
vinced almost from the begmmng that a successful issue of the war was
impossible for Germany. Ever before his eyes was that fateful session of
the Prussian Cabinet on August 3 at which Bethmann HoUweg had de-
clared that the participation of Great Britain in the war had now become
inevitable, a statement which brought a cry from Admiral von Tirpitz of
“All is then lost I” At hearing this exclamation from one who had done

TANNENBEEG AND PLESS

35

allowed to drop out of circulation, it was not till November 3
tbat tbe appointment of General von Falkenbayn was made
public. Army communique ceased for a while, and through-
out the war the German nation was never told the truth
of the crisis at Headquarters; even leading members of the
Reichstag only learnt much later, indirectly and incom-
pletely, of what really happened on the Western Front in
September 1914.

The new Chief of the General Stafi, a native of West
Prussia, a comparatively young man and of considerable
personal charm, had one great advantage over his pre-
decessor in that he was at least physically fit for the task.
But though his conduct of the Rumanian campaign of 1916
showed him to be capable of fulfilhng the position of an
army commander with distinction, he was as unequal as
Moltke to the supreme responsibility. Indeed, though the
German army of 1914 had stafi officers of the very highest
abihty, as, for example, Groner, Seeckt, Willisen, and Hofi-
mann, these men rarely came into decisive power because,
lacking seniority, their abilities remained hidden. For two
long years the supreme military direction of the German
armies remained in inept hands, and when, in the summer
of 1916, the great military genius of Ludendorfi finally took
over the command, all hope of attaining a m i l itary victory
had passed away.

What might not have happened had the Emperor ap-
pointed the military combination of Hindenburg, Luden-
dorfi, and Hofimann to the Supreme Command in September
1914? The controUing brains of the combination, Ludendorfi
and Hofimann, were essentially Schliefien men, and, in the
opinion of some of the best military authorities in Germany,
the Schliefien Plan was stUl capable of operation after the
failure of the Marne. Hofimann beheved it and declared

more than any other to promote conflict between England and Germany,
the last hope of victory vanished for the Chief of the General Stafi, and
he at once became a prey to the deepest depression and despair.

36

TAIOENBEEG AND PLESS

himself in favour of transferring ten army corps from the
left to the right wing and of making, with these muted
forces, a renewed attack, even if, as a necessary condition,
large parts of Alsace and Lorraine must pass temporarily
into French hands. Groner, according to Ludendorfi,
actually made a similar suggestion to Falkenhayn and had
worked out, in his capacity of Director of Field Railways, a
plan for the transport north of six army corps, but his
proposal was rejected.^ Falkenhayn, as a matter of fact, did
eventually transfer the greater part of the Sixth and Seventh
Armies from his southern flank, but his movement coincided
with Joffre’s strengthening of his left wing, prolonging the
French Hne to the northward. Thus in succession the
German corps arriving from the south found themselves
confronted at each point with a similar concentration of
troops opposite them, and Falkenhayn finally abandoned
the Schhefien Plan in favour of the capture of Antwerp and
a great drive against the Channel ports. It is, however, a
matter of interesting speculation as to what the genius of
Ludendorfi and the fortitude of Hindenburg, supported by
the technical expert knowledge of Groner and Ho ffmann ,
might have accomplished at this juncture.

The appointment of Falkenhayn marked the close of the
first phase of the war, during which the Central Powers had

^ It is possible tbat LudendoifE may not bave entirely understood the
full meaning of Groner’s proposal, which was of a more audacious nature
than he suggests. It appeared to Groner that the transfer of troops from
the left to the right would take too long and was too cumbersome an
operation, m view of the fact that there was no adequate French railway
line available for the purpose. He, therefore, proposed that the cavalry
divisions on the extreme right, of which Major von Willisen was Chief of
Stafi, should be retained in their positions at Kemmel; that the new
divisions, then being formed in Germany, should be brought straight to
the West to strengthen the German right and that troops should be with-
drawn from the left in Alsace-Lorraine to reinforce the Eastern Front.
These operations would take full advantage of the excellently organized
system of the German strategic railways and their execution would,
therefore, have been possible within a very brief space of time.

TANNENBERG AND PLESS

37

achieved a brilliant success in East Prussia and had sus-
tained two outstanding defeats on the Marne and around
Lemberg, where the Austro-Hungarian army had lost more
than 200,000 men. In addition, the initiative had passed into
the hands of the Allies.

Falkenhayn hoped by his drive against the Channel Ports
to liquidate the position in the West, but in the meantime
urgent and immediate assistance had to be sent to Germany’s
Eastern ally. Clearly, no troops could be spared from the
West and help must therefore come from the wearied but
victorious troops of Hindenburg.

The advancing Russian armies, after their success at
Lemberg, threatened both the Austrian forces in Galicia and
the German province of Silesia, and as early as September
14, the day of Ealkenhajm’s appointment, Hindenburg
had received orders to operate in Silesia in support of
the Austrians. It had originally been intended to form
a new Ninth Army under General von Schubert, with
LudendorfE as Chief of Staff, to carry out these operations,
but, in deference to representations from all the parties
concerned, the Emperor appointed Hindenburg to the com-
mand of both the Eighth and Ninth Armies, and thus the
combination, which Mr. Winston Churchill has designated
by the symbol HL, but which might well be expanded to
HLH to include Hoffmann, remained unsevered.

The position now confronting the combination HTH was
of equal seriousness and danger to that before Tannenberg,
with the additional disadvantages that the German veterans
had been but slightly reinforced, whereas the Russian armies
were fresh, and their High Command, now under the personal
direction of the Grand Duke Nicholas, had learned much
from the previous campaign and was no longer hampered by
petty jealousies. The Grand Duke had drawn up one and a
quarter million men so disposed that they could either make
an advance into Germany or meet an impending German
attack.

38

TANNENBEEG AKD PLESS

To oppose this host there were the Ninth and part of
the Eighth Armies, some eighteen divisions, concentrated
in Silesia, together with Dankl’s First Austrian Army on
the right, leaving the remainder of the Eighth Army
for the defence of East Prussia. The object of the main
force was to seize and hold aU the crossings of the Vistula
from the confluence of the San to Warsaw, and, thus
protected, to strike at Warsaw itself. With this end in
view Mackensen and Dankl began their advance on
September 28.

The plans of each headquarters staff were disclosed to the
other in the true tradition of military melodrama. On
September 30 a pocket-book taken from a dead German
officer revealed to the Grand Duke the significant fact that
only two German corps remained in East Prussia, thereby
confirming reports already received of the concentration of
troops to the southward, and justifying the belief that the
advance which had begun on September 28 was being made by
a German army closely in touch with the Austrian left wing.
A few days later (October 9) an order found on a Eussian
corpse revealed to German Headquarters the magnitude of
the plan opposed to them. “It appeared that we had four
Eussian armies to cope with,” writes Hindenburg, “that is,
about sixty divisions to eighteen of ours. . . . The enemy’s
superiority was increased by the fact that, as a result of the
previous fighting in East Prussia and France, as well as the
long and exhausting marches of more than 200 miles over
indescribable roads, our troops had been reduced to scarcely
half establishment and in some cases even to a quarter of
their original strength. And these weak units of ours were
to meet fresh arrivals at full strength . . . the Siberian
Corps, the elite of the Tsar’s Empire! The enemy’s inten-
tion was to hold us fast along the Vistula while a decisive
attack from Warsaw was to spell our ruin. It was un-
questionably a great plan of the Grand Duke Nicholas
Nicholaievitch, indeed the greatest I had known, and in

TANNENBEEG AND PLESS

39

my view it remained his greatest until he was transferred
to the Caucasus. . .

Stout hearts indeed, and all the resources of iron will and
cool audacity, were required in the face of these odds to con-
tinue an advance which even at the iBxst had not been assured
of success. There are few episodes in German mihtary history
which show a more generous effort to reheve an ally or a
more accurate estimation of German military superiority
over an enemy. It was in every sense a “sporting” operation
but not a foolhardy one. Every precaution had been taken
for a speedy retreat in the event of failure. Bridges and
tunnels were mined at the same tune that they were repaired,
and the whole of the communications of the advancing
army were so organized as to make the swiftest retreat
possible. No episode in the war on the Eastern Front
illustrated more clearly the superb combination of Luden-
dorff’s strategy and Hoffmann’s technical efficiency, sur-
mounted by the growing legend and prestige of Hinden-
burg.

By October 6 the German advance had reached the
Vistula over almost impassable roads. The immediate
strategic effect was enormous, for the Russians broke up
their front in Gahcia and raised the siege of the fortress of
Przemysl. The Austrians were able to advance to the San
without finding any noteworthy resistance. But at the
Vistula two new factors came into play. The Germans met
with fierce and heroic resistance from the Caucasian corps,
whose gun trails were actually in the river but who could
not be dislodged, while to the right the Austrians, who
were to attack the Russian left flank, proved so weak in
striking power that they did not succeed in forcing the cross-
ing of the San.

Thus held on the river front a German frontal attack was
impossible, but by the 12th Mackensen on the left was within

^ LudeadorfE, too, usually so chary of etdogy, expresses the opinion
that this plan disclosed the Grand Duke as “einen ganzen General”.

40

TANNENBEKG AND PLESS

a dozen miles of Warsaw and was holding an important
railway junction almost inside the perimeter of the city.
Now, however, the Grand Duke launched four armies on the
German centre and for three days a terrific battle ensued in
which the German divisions opposed in their turn the passage
of the Vistula, hoping in vain that their Austrian allies on
the right would create a diversion.

Gradually Russian preponderance of numbers became
irresistible and at German Headquarters at Radom there
was the greatest anxiety. “It was indeed the hardest time
of the campaign in my experience”, writes Hoffmann.
“Ludendorff and I stand and support each other and the
chief says ‘God be with us, I can do no more!’ ” Hinden-
burg admits frankly the doubts which mingled with his
resolution. Further advance was impossible, yet “what
would the Homeland say when our retreat approached its
frontiers? Was it remarkable that terror reigned in Silesia?
Its inhabitants would thin k of how the Russians had laid
waste East Prussia, of robbing and looting, the deportation
of non-combatants and other horrors. Fertile Silesia, with
its highly developed coal mines and great industrial areas,
both as vital to our military operations as daily bread itself.
It is not an easy thing to say in war, ‘I am going to evacuate
this region!’ You must be an economist as well as a soldier.
Ordinary human feelings also assert themselves. It is often
these last which are hardest to overcome.”

It is easy enough to appreciate the feelings of Hinden-
burg at this juncture. It was his first taste of failure as a
commanding general. Hitherto victory, even though after
hard-fought battles, had been his, and now there was no
alternative but to retreat and accept the inevitable. He had
undoubtedly hoped at the outset, with the assistance of the
Austrians, to inflict some real defeat upon the Russians and
may indeed have been shghtly puzzled why this had not
come about. “The worst of matters here”, writes Hofimann
in his diary at this moment, “is that Hindenburg simply

TANNENBEEG AND PLESS

41

cannot understand why we do not win another victory like
that in East Prussia.”

But a moment arrived when flesh and blood could stand
no more, and on October 17 the order was given for a general
retreat. This movement, carried out through the sleet and
slush of a Pohsh autumn, where Napoleon’s “fourth
element” — mud — was predominant, was executed with the
same amazing skill which marked the advance. Marching
sixty miles in six days and with more than one stubborn
rear-guard action, the Ninth Army had by the end of
October returned to their original position, but less 40,000
men; while the Russian forces, flushed with success, were
once more advancing towards Silesia.

It was clear that not a moment must be lost if the great
Silesian industrial areas were to be saved from invasion, yet
it was impossible to meet the Russian hordes in the present
position and with depleted forces. An element of surprise
must be introduced and reinforcements sohcited from the
West.

At a headquarters conference at Chenstokhova, on
November 3, the new plan took form in the brains of
Ludendorfl and Hofimann, and, in imparting it to the
staff, Hindenburg indicated its nature by a gesture of his
left hand pointing to the north. All present understood
and agreed. The Ninth Army, now facing north-east from
Posen to Cracow, must be reunited with the Eighth and
reformed, facing south-east from Posen to Thorn, and an
attack made against Lodz to draw the Russians from their
present objectives.

By a miracle of railway transport this movement was
carried out with the greatest speed and secrecy. Within
a week (by November 10) the transfer was completed and
the German army multiplied by two was deployed on a
new 70-mile front, while the Russians remained completely
ignorant of its departure, or of the fact that its place had been
taken by General Bohm-Ermolli’s Second Austrian Army.

42

TANNENBEEG AOT) PLESS

German General Headquarters were established in the
castle of Posen, where, writes Ludendorff, “we got into the
habit of sitting together for a time after dinner at a round
table on which stood an aspidistra, the gift of H.M. our
Kaiserin, a true German woman”.

8

The plans for the projected German counter-ofiensive on
the Thorn-Posen line required two factors for complete
success, unity of command in the East and adequate
reinforcements. When, therefore, Ludendorff in the last
week of October was summoned to Supreme Headquarters
at Mezieres to confer with Falkenhayn, he put these two
points very forcibly to the Chief of the General Staff, sparing
him nothing of the very serious position in which the Eighth
and Ninth Armies were placed in the face of the Kussian
numerical superiority.

This meeting between Ludendorff and Ealkenhayn is of
very considerable importance, for it marked the first direct
personal contact between the Western and Eastern theatres
of war, and the first skirmish in that long campaign between
Falkenhayn and BDLH which ended two years later in
Palkenhayn’s resignation. Ludendorff learned now the
truth of what had happened in the West in September;
Falkenhayn heard, and it is certain that Ludendorff ’s story
lost nothing in the teUing, of the prodigious feats accom-
plished in the East with limit ed forces, and what might yet
be done with adequate reinforcements. Ludendorff and
Hoffmann felt sure that with two or three fresh corps they
could drive the Eussians back from East Prussia and
Silesia, capture Warsaw, and inflict a really crushing
iefeat, comparable to those of Tannenberg and the Lakes,
ipon the Tsar’s armies.

Falkenhayn, though sensible of the requirements of the
Eastern Front, had his own plans. His ambitions to take the

TANNENBERG AND BLESS

43

Ckannel Ports had dwindled first to the capture of Ypres
and Armentieres, and finally to Ypres. But Ypres he must
have, its capture had become an obsession both with him
and with the Emperor. Once Ypres had fallen, three or four
corps should be transported to the East, but until then all
he could spare was two cavalry divisions, and with these
the Eastern Command must do what it could. All Luden-
dorfi’s appeals were vain, and he left with the impression
that Falkenhayn was debberately starving the Eastern
Front and failed to appreciate the opportunities for
decisive victory which were there presented. He left
Imperial Headquarters in a spirit of dissatisfaction which
he imparted to his colleagues at Posen. Nor was this spirit
dispelled by a visit from Falkenhayn’s Chief of Operations
and alter ego, Colonel von Tappen, whom, says Hoffmann,
“I implored, almost on my knees, to persuade the Chief
of the General Staff to put at our disposal, besides the
promised reinforcements, at least two more army corps”.
The refusal was again definite.

In its second object, however, the mission of Ludendorff to
Mezi^res was more successful. On November 1 the Emperor
appointed Hindenburg Commander-in-Chief in the East,
having under him all German forces from the Baltic to the
Austrian frontier, with Ludendorff as his Chief of Staff, and
Hoffmann as senior Staff Officer. Thus HLH were trans-
lated intact to a higher sphere of action.

The operation which opened on November 11 in East
Prussia was carried out by the shghtly reinforced Eighth and
Ninth Armies, and resulted in the battle of Lodz, which
Hindenburg himself described as “exceeding in ferocity all
the battles which had previously been fought on the
Eastern Front”. In the course of it a quarter of a million
Germans were pitted against over half a million Eussians.
At one moment the Germans only just failed to surround
and capture 150,000 Eussians, at another the Eussians
actually surrounded but failed to hold 60,000 Germans.

L6 TANNENBERG AND PRESS

:hat by conciliating England it might be possible to detach
tier from the Alhes and to reach a separate peace agreement
sffith her. He therefore opposed strenuously the adoption
of rmrestricted U-boat warfare and advocated an aggressive
policy on the Eastern Front. As against this view there was
that of Tirpitz, and to some extent of Falkenhayn, who
regarded England as the arch-enemy of the Fatherland.
“Our most dangerous enemy”, wrote the Chief of the
General StaE, “is not in the East, but England, with whom
the conspiracy against Germany stands and falls.”

In the military sphere the issue was more clear-cut and
more technical. It was clear that an outstanding German
victory must be achieved by the spring; much, very much,
depended on it, and, most important of all, the attitude of
Italy and the Balkan States, which had hitherto remained
neutral. The point at issue was; should this victory be won
in the East or the West?

It was now that the German Supreme Command began
to reap the fruits of their zealous fostering of the Hinden-
burg legend after Tannenberg. Then they had been only
too thankful that the failure of the Marne should be glossed
over by the East Prussian victories, and accordingly the
name of Hindenburg had been exalted to the skies. Now
this same glittering galaxy of military pundits discovered
that they had created a new factor which rapidly
threatened to escape their control. Hindenburg and Luden-
dorff attended conferences at Imperial General Head-
quarters with the air of men who have done things and
have more to achieve. Moreover, they commanded an army
whose victories had imbued it with a feeling of unquestioned
superiority over the enemy, a conviction shared by the
oldest Landsturm man with the youngest recruit.

As against this record of success in the East, the High
Command in the West could only point to the collapse of
Moltke, the failure of the Marne, the retreat to the Aisne,
and the defeat of the Prussian Guard before Ypres. How

TANNENBERG AND PLESS

47

near they had been to victory on a number of occasions
and how thin a line had prevented their advance along the
Menin Koad, they could not know, but the fact remained
that though they had won territory they had not achieved
victory.

It is true that, in the West, G-ermany had been con-
fronted by troops and military organizations of the highest
order, the flower of the armies of France and Britain,
while, in the East, the Russian armies, though numerically
superior, were badly equipped, weak in artillery, and in
most cases poorly led. Nevertheless it was also unassailably
true that victories and large numbers of prisoners had
graced German arms in the East, whereas failures and heavy
losses were their portion in the West.

Hindenburg and Ludendorfi therefore felt fully justified
in urging the Supreme Command “to let them go on winning
the war”. They believed, and in this they had the full
support of the Chief of the Austrian GeneraTStafE, Field-
Marshal Conrad von Hotzendorf, that it was both possible
and imperative to drive Russia out of the war by means of
a decisive victory. A great effort must be made in the
spring with every available corps; and, if it were not made,
the war might be speedily lost by the desertion to the Alhes
of the Balkan neutrals and by the conclusion of a separate
peace by Austria. The Dual Monarchy must be bolstered
up, Serbia crushed, Italy kept neutral, Greece, Bulgaria,
and Rumania brought in on the side of the Central Powers,
and Turkey supported in her Jehad against Britain. Such
was the thesis advanced by HLH.

Falkenhayn, however, was completely and utterly
opposed to this theory. To him the assumption that a
final decision could be obtained in the East was unfounded
and “based upon sophisms”. He did not believe, and
subsequent events proved him right, that the Western Allies
would give way if Russia were beaten. “No decision in the
East,” he wrote subsequently, “even though it was as

t8 TANNENBEKG Ai^D PLESS

thoiougL. as was possible to imagine, could spare us from
fighting to a conclasion in the West.”

As early as January 1915, the Chief of the General
Staff had assumed an attitude of mind which was funda-
mentally defeatist. He was no longer fighting for victory,
but for escape. No more than an indemnity could be
exacted from Russia and France. But he was convinced
that, if Germany must go on fighting, her best chance of
success lay in the West. To this end he evolved the principle
of “limited offensives”, which should injure and weaken
the enemy more than they would weaken and injure the
Germans, and he was preparing to make the first of these
against the northern sections of the Anglo-French lines in
late January or early February.

Herein lay the deep-seated cause of the struggle between
HLH and Falkenhayn. They stiU believed in the possibihty
of victory, he did not. They regarded his pohcy of “limited
offensives” as dissipating the man-power of Germany in
isolated efforts without achieving lasting results; he viewed
their hopes of achieving a decision in the East as military
sophistry. Moreover, he, as Chief of the General Staff, was
their superior and was in control of the German army
machine and of five-sixths of its strength.

But Hindenburg and Ludendorff, too, had powerful alhes.
The Chancellor and the Foreign Office supported them, and
Conrad von Hdtzendorf posted from Vie nna, to Berlin to
emphasize his view that “complete success in the Eastern
theatre is still, as hitherto, decisive for the general situation
and extremely urgent”. Falkenhayn was adamant. He
would send no fresh troops to the East, he needed the four
new corps then being raised for his attacks in the West. He
even refused to countenance the sending of divisions south
from Hindenburg’s command to the support of the Austrians.

Conrad returned to his headquarters at Teschen and
ordered the preparation for an offensive in Galicia, to fore-
stall a Russian attack upon him and the entry of Italy into

TANNBNBEEG AND PLESS

49

tlie war on the side of the Allies. He telegraphed for aid both
to Falkenhayn and Hindenburg. Falkenhayn refused on
behalf of both.

HLH then performed their first act of defiance and in-
dependence. They informed Falkenhayn that they were in
complete accord with Conrad’s views, and that, without
the consent of the Chief of the General Stafi, they had
promised to send several divisions to the support of the
Austrians.

This was open war, and both sides appealed to the Em-
peror, as All-Highest War Lord, for a decision. The Imperial
position had changed considerably in the last few months.
In September 1914, without taking advice or counsel with
anyone, the Emperor had appointed Falkenhayn to succeed
Moltke, and none had even attempted to influence his
decision. Now in January 1915, he was faced with the pre-
dicament of supporting the leader of his own Imperial
choice against the acclaimed idols of the people, who had
unquestionably committed an act of insubordination. To
dismiss or even reprimand Hindenburg and Ludendorfi
had by January 1915 become an impossibility; all Germany
would have supported them even against the Emperor, and
the Emperor knew it. On January 8 he gave his approval
for Conrad’s Carpathian operations and for the despatch of
German troops for their support.

But Falkenhayn also had his moment of victory. Though
forced to concede on the major issue, he made a determined
efiort to break up the sinister combination of HLH, which
had so flagrantly flouted his authority. Ludendorff had
supported Conrad in his demand for German divisions for
the Galician offensive; Ludendorfi then should share in the
command of the divisions, and forthwith Falkenhayn per-
suaded the Emperor to appoint Ludendorff as Chief of Staff
to the new Sudarmee, which was being formed under the
command of Linsingen to co-operate with Conrad. The
appointment was accompanied by a flattering expression

60

TANNENBERG AND BLESS

of the Emperor’s deep confidence in Ludendorfi’s military
ability, but its true meaning was plain for all to see.

It may be imagined with wbat feelings Hindenburg re-
ceived tbe news of LudendorfE’s transfer to Galicia. For the
past five months, ever since that strangely correct meeting
on the station platform at Hanover, the two men had been
practically inseparable, and Hindenburg’s self had been, to
a very large degree, absorbed into the more dominating
personahty of Ludendorff. Tannenberg, the Lakes, the
advance to Warsaw, the dismal retreat to Silesia, and the
bitter struggle around Lodz, had welded the two together
into an irrefragable union, and, though Ludendorfi could
have operated without Hindenbmg, it is very certain that
Hindenburg could not have functioned without LudendorfE.
Not even Hoffmann could take his place.

Faced therefore with this danger of spiritual disruption,
Hindenburg was moved to take independent action of a
drastic nature. Once more ignoring Falkenhayn, he petitioned
the Emperor direct on two scores: first, that the four new
corps in process of formation should be employed in a
decisive blow in East Prussia, and secondly, that Ludendorff
might be returned to him.

Tbe employment of these [corps] in the East [he wrote] is a
necessity. With them it will not be difSicult quickly to inflict on the
enemy in East Prussia a decisive and annihilating blow and at last
to free entirely that sorely afflicted province and to push on thence
with our whole force. ... I regard this operation, with the employ-
ment in the East of the newly raised forces, as decisive for the out-
come of the whole war; whereas their employment in the West will
only lead to a strengthening of our defence, or — as at Ypres — ^to a
costly and not very promising frontal push. Our army in the West
ought to be able to hold weU-constructed positions sited in successive
lines and to maintain itself without being reinforced by the new
corps until decisive success in the East has been attained.

Here, in a concise form, was tbe kernel of tbe mibtary
philosophy of HLH. A period of vigilant quiescence in tbe

TANNENBEEG AND PLESS

51

West until the annihilation of the Russian armies had been
accomplished, and possibly an armistice signed, and then a
smashing offensive against the Anglo-French positions. It
was this strategy which Hindenburg and Ludendorff em-
ployed in 1917-18, but by that time it was too late.

Hindenburg’ s request for reunion with Ludendorff was im-
passioned and deeply significant, for it betrayed the degree
to which he had already become dependent upon the other.
Despite the restraint of the language, there is something
pitiful, something almost of fear, underlying the appeal.

Your Imperial and Royal Majesty has been graciously pleased
to command that General Ludendorff should, as Chief of the Staff,
be transferred from me to the Southern Army. . . . During the days
of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes, during the operations
against Ivangorod and Warsaw, and in the advance from the
Wreschen-Thorn line, I have grown into close union with my Chief
of Staff, he has become to me a true helper and friend, irreplaceable
by any other, one on whom I bestow my fullest confidence. Your
Majesty knows from the history of the war how important so happy
a relationship is for the course of affairs and the well-being of the
troops. To that is to be added that his new and so much smaller
sphere of action does not do justice to the General’s comprehensive
ability and great capacity, . . . On all these grounds I venture most
respectfully to beg that my war-comrade may graciously be restored
to me so soon as the operations in the south are under way. It is
no personal ambition which leads me to lay this petition at the feet
of your Imperial and Royal Majesty. That be far from me! Your
Majesty has overwhelmed me with favours beyond my deserts, and
after the war is ended I shall retire again into the background with
a thankful and joyful heart. Ear rather do I believe that I am ful-
filling a duty in expressing with all submission this request.

FaUcenhayn, in personal interviews with Conrad, Lin-
singen, and Ludendorff at Breslau on January 10, and with
Hindenburg, Ludendorff, and Hoffmann two days later
at Posen, sought to impose his views. The leaders of the
Eastern School refused absolutely to make any concession
to him and stood upon their appeal to Caesar, and they

2

TANNENBERG AND PLESS

,dded their voices to that of the Chancellor in Berlin, urging
hat Falkenhayn should be dismissed. In this they were
insuccessful, but on all other heads Wilhehn II once more
)Owed before the storm. The offensive in East Prussia was
approved and Ludendorfi was reunited with his old chief,
falkenhayn had “with a heavy heart to make up his
nind to employ in the East the young corps which were
he only available reserves at the time”, and, moreover,
lad to surrender the Prussian Ministry of War to General
/7ild von Hohenborn. That, having sustained this damaging
)low to his prestige, he continued as Chief of the Imperial
General Stafi for a further eighteen months is surprising,
or his authority never entirely recovered from the rebufi,
Lud though, in the conflict between himself and HLH, he
low and then scored a success, the ultimate issue was
lardly ever in doubt.

10

Hindenburg, Ludendorff, and Hoffmann were in the
iangerous position of having got all they wanted and
having given definite hopes of a decisive victory. They
Lad now to prove of the truth of their convictions; the
whole thesis of the Easterners was at stake.

The plan of campaign was on a gigantic scale and
envisaged an offensive on the right and left flanks of the
Grand Duke’s position; in East Prussia by the Eighth,
Ninth, and Tenth German Armies, and in the south by
the Austro-Hungarian forces supported by Linsingen’s
Sudarmee. The whole Russian army was to be caught
between the pincers. In the north it was hoped to repeat
the Cannae manceuvre of the previous September, and to
encircle and annihilate the opposing Russian forces.

In effect neither of these ambitions was realized. The
operations against both wings of the Russian front did not
come up to the far-reaching expectations expressed in
Hindenburg’s letter to the Emperor. In the south the

TANNENBERG AND PRESS

63

Austrian attack was stopped almost at once by a Russian
counter-ofiensive, and only Linsingen’s army was able to
make progress; while, in the north, though the winter
battle of the Masurian Lakes, which opened on February 7
and raged until the end of March, resulted in the eventual
destruction of the Tenth Russian Army in the forest of
Augustovo, with the capture of a large amount of artillery
and many thousands of prisoners, it was found impossible
to exploit and follow up this success. The failure occurred
partly on account of the rigour of the climate and the con-
sequent tax upon the endurance of the troops, and partly
because of the endless stream of reinforcements which
arrived to fill the gaps made by the Russian casualties.

Both Hindenburg and Ludendorff admit frankly that
the operations had failed to achieve the decisive result for
which they had hoped. “In spite of the great tactical
success ... we failed strategetically”, wrote the Marshal.
But in the country at large and in the estimation of many
leaders in Berlin, their laurels, and especially those of
Hindenburg, were not only untarnished but re-gilded. It
was at this moment that Grand-Admiral von Tirpitz was
advocating a plan, for which he even succeeded in en-
listing the support of the Kaiserin and the Crown Prince;
the Emperor was to dismiss Bethmann Hollweg and Ealken-
hayn, and then to go temporarily into retirement, having
called Hindenburg to the position of Dictator, a role which
would combine the offices of Chancellor and Commander-
in-Chief on land and sea. This course alone, the Admiral
beheved, could save Germany, and more especially was he
anxious to get rid of the immediate Imperial entourage,
the heads of the Emperor’s Civil, Military, and Naval
Cabinets, known to their many enemies as “the Hydra”.

But Ealkenhayn’s star was temporarily in the ascendant,
and it was to him now that the ears of the Emperor and
“the Hydra” were inclined. Hoffmann at this moment was
noting in his diary: “Falkenhayn is the evil genius of our

64

TAimENBEEG AND PLBSS

Fatlierland, and, unfortunately, he has the Kaiser in his
pocket. Now we must depend upon ourselves.”

Having successfully defeated the French ofiensive in
Champagne during the months of February and March 1915,
Falkenhayn had allowed himself to be momentarily wooed
from his Western “orthodoxy” by the sheer necessity of
events. The Eussian armies had by no means been exhausted
by the winter ofiensive, nor were they fundamentally dis-
couraged by the defeat of the Second Masurian Battle. They
were counter-attacking fiercely along the German front, and
in Galicia they had all but stormed the Carpathian barrier.
The fertile plains of Hungary lay open to invasion once this
great natural defence was passed, and Conrad von Hotzen-
dorf was calling again, this time more imperatively than
ever, for assistance from his aUy.

Of the great figures which passed across the Central
European stage during the years of war, that of Conrad
von Hdtzendorf is among the most tragic. Perhaps the
ablest of all the strategists produced by the Central Powers,
his briUiant conceptions were for ever doomed to failure
by reason of the quahty of the material with which he
sought to carry them into effect. The Austro-Hungarian
army, through lack of homogeneity, through faulty and
obsolete organization, and through corruption at home, was
never a weapon worthy of the genius of its Chief of Staff,
whose great abihty was fully appreciated by his German
colleagues. “The ideas of the Chief of the Austrian General
Staff were good, they were all good. . . . The misfortune
of that man of genius was that he had not the proper
instrument by which he could transform his ideas into facts.
The troops failed.” So wrote Hoffmann, the most pene-
trating of critics on the Eastern Front.

In face of the grim pressure of events, Falkenhayn
reluctantly abandoned his dreams of an offensive in the
West and turned his thoughts eastwards. Here for the
moment must be the centre of military activity, but he

TANNENBERG AND BLESS

55

would direct operations himself; HLH had had a free hand
and had failed, such new operations as might be under-
taken must be the fruit of the labours of the Chief of the
General Staff.

For this reason Imperial General Headquarters were trans-
ferred from Mezieres to the Silesian castle of the Prince of
Pless, where the Chief of the General Staff, adhering to his
conviction that the enveloping tactics of the Schlieffen
school, as practised by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, had not
been justified by success, began to develop a new stratagem
with the more direct objective of a “break-through” of the
Russian lines between Gorlice and Tarnov, just north of the
Carpathians.

In reality this was merely a reversion to a proposal which
had been outhned to Falkenhayn by Conrad von Hotzendorf
at their conference in December 1914, at the Hotel Adlon,
but in his book Falkenhayn is silent as to the author of
the idea.

Here indeed was irony for Hindenburg, Ludendorff, and
Hoffmann. At last there had occurred that for which they
had so incessantly asked, the transfer of the centre of
activity from West to East; at last the interest of Imperial
General Headquarters was centred on the destruction of the
Russians; at last heavy reinforcements were being brought
eastward. But all this was Dead Sea fruit. The command
of the Eastern Front, which they had grown to regard as
their own personal preserve, automatically reverted to
Imperial General Headquarters at Pless. The sacred teach-
ings of Schheffen were to be abandoned for a new doctrine
of a frontal assault, and even this was not to be under their
direction. A new army of German and Austro-Hungarian
divisions, commanded by Mackensen, with Seeckt as Chief
of Staff, was entrusted with the “break-through” at GorUce,
in which the armies under the control of the Commander-
in-Chief in the East played but a secondary part. “My
headquarters”, wrote Hindenburg, “was only an indirect

66

TANNENBBEG AND PLESS

participant in the great operation which began at Gorlice.
Our first duty, within the framework of this mighty enter-
prise, was to tie down strong enemy forces.”

This duty was discharged by means of a gas attack (the
first to be executed in the East) dehvered along the front of
the Ninth Army, by means of an advance on Suvalki, and
by a cavalry raid into Courland and Northern Lithuania.
Thus covered, the operation of the “break-through” at
Gorlice, which began on May 2, was a great success, a success
which amazed and perhaps chagrined the disciples of
SchhefEen ^ But although the Russian front was rolled back,
yielding provinces and cities, till almost the whole of Galicia
was cleared of the invader and even Warsaw was threatened,
there was no overwhelming defeat and no great increase in
booty; by June the operations were approaching a deadlock
and HLH were quick to take advantage of the position to
propose a return to their theory of enveloping tactics.

A super-Tannenberg was envisaged, an outflanking move-
ment designed to cut off the Russian centre, which still
projected in a salient westwards beyond Warsaw; an opera-
tion which, beginning east and south against Kovno, would
open up the road to Vilna, and cut ofl the Russian retreat.
“Perhaps for the last time”, records Hoffmann, “we had the
opportunity of inflicting a decisive blow upon the Russian
army.”

So confident were the headquarters of the Commander-
in-Chief in the East that this plan would be accepted by the
High Command, that preparations for the Kovno offensive

^ Count Ottokar Czernin, tie late Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister,
m a defence of kia policy before tbe Vienna Parliament immediately
after the war (December 11, 1918), declared his belief that at one point
only in the history of the war, namely, alter the battle of Gorlice, “with
the Eussian army in flight and the Russian fortresses falling like houses
of cards”, was it possible to have secured a peace based on “a policy of
renunciation”. The Russians, he beheved, were prepared for it, but the
German mihtary party refused to consider the possibility (In the World
War, p. 329).

TANNENBERG AND PLESS

57

were pushed forward with, enthusiasm and were well ad-
vanced when, on July 1, the Marshal and Ludendorff were
summoned to a conference with the Emperor and Falken-
hayn at Posen.

With high expectations they left their headquarters at
Lotzen, Ludendorff arranging to telephone to Hoffmann
immediately after the audience, so that the final orders
might he issued without delay. Hour after hour Hoffmann
waited in his office. The audience had been timed for the
early morning. Noon passed and no telephone message came.
Hoffmann was as near to nervous anxiety as he ever per-
mitted himself to approach. At last, late in the afternoon,
the tensely savage voice of Ludendorff ordered him to stop
everything and to abandon all preparations. Ealkenha 3 Ti
had won another trick.

At Posen, Falkenhayn, elated at the success of the
Gorhce venture and faithful as ever to his strategy of
hmited aims, had dechned to consider the proposed offensive
“into the blue”, and advocated a repetition of a frontal
attack in the shape of a second “break-through” on the line
of the Narev. Both sides appealed to the Emperor, but
times had changed since the previous January and its vital
decisions, and the Emperor had come under other in-
fluences. By this time he had gone over wholly to Falken-
hayn and Tappen, and for this there is the evidence of both
Colonel Bauer and of Hoffmann. Bauer, who was present at
the Posen discussions, declares that Wilhelm II was “wholly
under the influence of Falkenhayn and Tappen” and records
a brief episode in confirmation. Ludendorff advanced the
argument in defence of his plan that the proposed attack
would meet with no more than feeble resistance, whereupon
Tappen remarked sarcastically: “These people only want to
attack where there is no one to oppose them”. Under the
influence of such advice the Emperor vetoed the plans of
HLH, and approved the “break-through” on the Narev, to
be made by the forces of Gallwitz and Scholtz, withdrawn

58

TANNENBEEG AND PLESS

for tlie purpose from tEe authority of the Commander-in-
Chief in the Bast. When Hindenburg and Ludendorff left
Posen the breach with Falkenhayn was complete.

11

In the constant bickering that now took place between
Imperial General Headquarters and the Commander-in-
Chief in the East, it is doubtful whether such a degree of
bitterness would have been attained had not the Marshal
allowed himself to be so greatly influenced by his two
lieutenants. For Hindenburg’s character was too phleg-
matic and his temperament too sluggish for strong passion.
Nor was he of a jealous nature. It mattered little to him
that he, a Field-Marshal with fifty years of service, should
act under Falkenhayn, a man far younger both in years and
in rank. To Hindenburg his Supreme War Lord was the
Emperor, to whom he regarded himself as directly respon-
sible, and his sense of personal loyalty to his sovereign would
inevitably have led him to accept without demur the
Imperial decision, even though in his heart he might have
disagreed with it.

But if Tappen incited Falkenhayn against Hindenburg,
Ludendorfi and Hoffmann inflamed the Marshal against the
Chief of the General Staff. After Ludendorff’s return from
Posen to Lotzen, Hoffmann describes the evening which they
spent together, “both of us cursing G.H.Q. for interfering
with our plans and ordering us to do something which we
aU thought impracticable”; these two now bent all their
energies towards fanning the flames of the quarrel. For to
them the blow was of double import. Not only were they
convinced that their plan alone could lead to victory, but
in rejecting it General Headquarters had flouted and
insulted the sacred doctrines of SchUeffen, which they
regarded as the God-given tables of the law.

Day by day the quarrel grew in bitterness, and with an

TANNENBEEG AKD PLESS

59

almost diabolical glee Hoffmann recorded its progress.
More and more frequently there appear in his diary entries
such as “on both sides there is much drafting of offensive
telegrams,” or “Ludendorff has sent an offensive telegram
and to-day, of course, got an even more offensive reply”. The
Marshal became more and more deeply involved. “The
quarrel between Falkenhayn and Hindenburg is developing.
The Field-Marshal is at last telling him the truth”; and —
in a burst of triumph — “We forced the Field-Marshal to
the point of resignation — he refused, until Ludendorff
threatened to resign also ... as a result we have had two
shmy telegrams from G.H.Q.”

Falkenhayn and Tappen were not behind in pettiness
and triviahty. They frequently pursued a pin-pricking
pohcy towards HLH, rejecting their proposals, imposing
■small humihations, and answering their offensive com-
munications in kind and with interest.

There is httle to choose between the parties in this dis-
creditable episode. Both sides appear to have lost at
this time all sense of wider vision, and, though both could
claim that their contentions were actuated by a deep-
seated devotion to the Fatherland and that their sole care
was the destruction of the enemy, it seems to have occurred
to neither that a policy of mutual distrust and recrimina-
tion between two great mihtary departments in time of war
was not calculated to secure victory over the enemy or
confidence at home.

These events provide an early and important example of
the degree to which Hindenburg allowed himself to be
dominated by his surrounding influences. It was his chief
and most vital faihng, and became increasingly apparent in
the years to come. So essential a part of his life does it
become that it is impossible to conceive of the Marshal
as standing alone. Throughout he appears as one of a con-
stellation, outshone in brilhance by the surrounding stars,
yet giving his name to the whole. In the East his satellites

60

TANNENBERG AND PLESS

were Ludendorfi and Hofimann; in the West, Ludendorff
alone. During the first Presidency he was dominated by
Meissner, a self-effacing satelhte; in the second, by the
Palace Camarilla. The Wooden Titan remained the “cover”
for the quarrels of Ludendorff and Hoffmann with D.H.Q.,
for the later political ventures of Ludendorff, and for the
tortuous intrigues of Schleicher, Papen, and his own son,
Oskar. Many things were committed in his name of which
he never approved and more of which he never knew. In
the early days his “legend” covered him as it were with a
buckler, but in time that, too, grew dimmer and faded.

12

In the meantime the war on the Eastern Front con-
tinued. The “break-through” of Gallwitz, which began on
July 13, was successful in its primary objective, and by the
17th he had reached the Narev. Under the pressure of the
German and Austro-Hungarian armies, breaking in on
every front, the Russians gradually began to give way at
all points and to withdraw slowly before the menace of
envelopment. Warsaw fell on August 6, Kovno was
stormed on the 17th, the great fortress of Novo-Georgievsk
capitulated two days later. Again Falkenhayn seemed to
have achieved success, but again the Grand Duke evaded
annihilation. The German pursuit began to lose its force in
incessant frontal attacks and HLH returned once more to
their earlier plans of encirclement. By pressing forward
beyond Kovno and Vilna they hoped to force the Russian
centre against the Pripet Marshes and cut their com-
munications with the interior of the country. Once more,
however, they were doomed to disappointment. Falken-
hayn insisted upon a straightforward pursuit. “A pursuit”,
comments Hindenburg, “in which the pursuer gets more
exhausted than the pursued.”

Under the walls of Novo-Georgievsk, after the surrender

TANNENBEEG AND PLESS

61

on August 19, Hindenbujg and Ludendorfi encountered
FaUrenhayn in the presence of the Emperor. The meeting
was courteous but cool. Said the Chief of the General Staff
to Ludendorfi: “Now are you at last convinced that my
operation was right?” “On the contrary”, was the icy reply.
The Emperor made some non-committal remarks and dis-
tributed decorations.

The dreams of a super-Tannenberg, the last opportunity
of inflicting a crushing defeat upon the Russian armies,
had vanished. Only the month of September remained
before the summer weather broke, and that period was too
short to carry out the great enveloping movement which
Ludendorfi had envisaged in July. But the strategy of
Ealkenhayn’s “limited ofiensive” had in the end yielded
no real and lasting results. The superficial success of
the Eastern campaign had obscured the fact that in its
essence it was a frustrated plan, and this despite the fact
that in a year Russia had lost in killed, wounded, and
prisoners over two million men, and guns and stores
approximately equivalent to what she possessed at the
outbreak of the war. In the removal of the Grand Duke
Nicholas from the Supreme Command, an event which
followed the defeats of the summer, she also lost her
ablest military leader. Nevertheless, the Russian army,
depleted and weakened though it was, still remained a
functioning mihtary machine, capable of being re-equipped
and reinforced, and of returning to the attack. A further
German ofiensive was out of the question: it was time for
the army to get ready for the winter.

In addition, the summer campaign had failed in its chief
political objectives. Despite the success of Gorlice in May,
it had been found impossible to hold Italy to her neutrality.
She had declared war on Austria on May 23.

The headquarters of the Commander-iu-Chief in the East
were moved from Lotzen to Kovno, and here Hindenburg
celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his entry into the

62

TANNENBERG AKD BLESS

Prussian Army. “With thanks in my heart to God. and my
Emperor and King, who glorified the day with a gracious
message, I looked back on half a century which I had spent
in war and peace in the service of Throne and Fatherland.”
He was to spend nearly twenty years more in the service of
his country, but at their close he would not be able to look
back with so clear a conscience as at Kovno.

13

In the period which followed ( October 191 5-August 1916),
the quarrel between the Commander-in-Chief in the East
and the Chief of the General Staff reached its fiercest heat.
The summer campaign of 1915 had marked the high-water
mark of Falkenhayn’s success and from thence his star
waned gradually to eclipse. The reputation of Hindenburg
and Ludendorff, on the contrary, grew steadily greater,
until it became impossible to exclude them any longer
from the Supreme Command.

But this was not achieved without a bitter struggle.
Falkenhayn, satisfied that he had put the Russians out of
the reckoning for a considerable period, shook himself free
from the heresies of the Eastern school, and returned to
meet the speedily maturing Allied offensive in the west. In
addition, it was found necessary to support Austria still
further by an attack on Serbia and to give encouragement
to Germany’s latest ally, Bulgaria, who had joined the
Central Powers on September 6 and was menaced by the
Allied forces at Salonika. For all these activities German
troops were required to stiffen those of Germany’s allies and
Falkenhayn began to withdraw divisions from the Eastern
Front.

Dominated by Ludendorff and Hoffmann, Hindenburg
resisted with ail his force this policy of denuding the
Eastern Front, fighting tooth and nail for each division. The
correspondence with Falkenhayn discloses a hostility of

TANNENBERG AND PLESS

63

almost unparalleled intensity between a regional com-
mander and a Chief of the General Staff, and it reached its
height when, on October 6, 1915, Hindenburg refused point-
blank to make further transfers of troops, and in a formal
protest to the Supreme Command challenged Falkenhayn’s
conduct of the whole campaign:

I have always taken the general situation into consideration by
relinquishing as many troops as I could . . . and I have also sent
off without delay any divisions which could be spared. The fact that
the further relinquishment of divisions is now meeting with diffi-
culties, is due to the plan of campaign pursued in the summer, which
was unable to strike a deadly blow at the Russians, in spite of the
favourable circumstances and my urgent entreaties. I am not blind
to the difficulties of the general military situation which have ensued,
and, if the Russian attacks are beaten off really decisively, I shall
relinquish further divisions as soon as it seems possible for me to do
so. . . . But I cannot bind myself to a defimte time. A premature
relinquishment would give rise to a crisis, such as is now being
experienced, to my regret, on the Western Front, and in certain
circumstances it would mean a catastrophe for the Army Group, as
any retiring movement of my troops, which are but weak in com-
parison with the enemy, must lead to very great harm being done to
the formations, owmg to the unfavourable condition of the terrain.
I request that my views should be represented to His Majesty.

''With all the consideration due to the person of the
Commander-in-Chief in the East whose name was associated
by the German people with the victory of Tannenberg’',
writes Falkenhayn, "it was impossible to allow these re-
marks to pass without a definite reply.”

He, therefore, responded to Hindenburg^s strictures with
vigour and in the same critical spirit:

Much as I regret that Your Excellency should without any cause
consider the present moment^ suited for explanations of events of
the past, which are, therefore, unimportant at the moment, I should

^ The French offensive in Champagne was at its height and the
offensive against Serbia had just begun.

64 TANNENBEEG AND PLESS

not trouble to refute your statements, if they concerned only me
personally.

But, as it concerns a criticism of orders issued by ’which, as

IS well known, have in all important cases met with the previous
consent of His Majesty, I am unhappily compelled to do so.

Whether Your Excellency agrees with the views of G.H.Q. does
not matter, once a decision has been made by His Majesty. In this
case every portion of our forces has to adapt itself unconditionally
to G.H.Q.

Thereafter followed a spirited refutation of Hindenburg’s
criticism of the campaign conducted by G.H.Q. in the East
and a caustic commentary on the Marshal’s own operations.
Falkenhayn continued:

In spite of my attitude to your operations, I did not propose to
His Majesty to interfere, but even supported them m every way; the
reason for this is to be found in my respect for the convictions of
another person so long as they keep within the necessary limits, and
do not threaten to harm operations as a whole; and because it is
impossible to gauge with mathematical precision the issue of any
operations which are carried out with the energy usual in such cases.

I will report to His Majesty the scruples which Your Excellency
raises against the withdrawal of the two divisions. I must refuse to
bring the remaining points of your telegram to the knowledge of the
Emperor, because they only concern consideration of past events,
about which, therefore, I do not intend in any case to approach the
Supreme War Lord in these grave days.

Once again the Emperor was called upon to decide be-
tween the views of his bickering generals and for the last
time he decided in favour of Falkenhayn; his decision was
to the effect that the divisions must be rehnquished to
G.H.Q. as ordered. For the rest Falkenhayn’s reply ful-
filled its purpose. Hindenburg acquiesced in it despite
the protests of Ludendorff and Hoffmann, and mature
consideration led him to admit that Falkenhayn might
have been right throughout. “In judging the plans of our
High Command”, he wrote years later, “we must not lose
sight of the whole military situation. We ourselves then

TANNENBERG AND BLESS

65

saw only a part of tlie picture. The question whether we
should have made other plans and acted otherwise if we had
known the whole pohtical and military situation must be
left open.” In any case there was now a pause of several
months in the dispute with G.H.Q., and it was not until the
situation again became acute, in the summer of 1916, that
the Eastern Command renewed its efforts to influence the
conduct of the war.

The time had come to decide on the plans to be pursued
in the coming year, and once again a conflict of plans
occurred. HLH urged, as usual, the crushing of Russia before
undertaking an extensive operation in the West. Their new
plan favoured a movement against the Russian left wing,
with the added pohtical element of forcing Rumania to
declare herself. Conrad von Hotzendorf, on the other hand,
desired a campaign in Italy. Falkenhayn rejected both plans
in favour of an idea of his own.

In an exhaustive report submitted to the Emperor at
Christmas, he surveyed the whole field of operations in
detail and gave his reasons for arriving at the conclusion
that the most suitable point for the next assault against
the Alhes was Verdun.

The French lines at that point are barely twelve miles distant &om
the German railway communications. Verdun is, therefore, the most
powerful foint d’afpui for an attempt, with a relatively small
expenditure of effort, to make the whole German front in France
and Belgium untenable . . . [on the other hand] within our reach
behind the French sector of the Western Front there are objectives
for the retention of which the French General Staff would be com-
pelled to throw in every man they have. If they do so the forces of
France will bleed to death — as there can be no question of a
voluntary withdrawal — ^whether we reach our goal or not. ... For
an operation limited to a narrow front Germany will not be compelled
to spend herself so completely that all other fronts are practically
drained. . . . She is perfectly free to accelerate or draw out her
offensive, to intensify or break it off from time to time as smts her
purpose.

66

TANNENBEEG AND PLESS

Here, therefore, is the epitome of Falkenhayn’s mihtary
philosophy of “hmited offensives”, accompanied politically
by a readiness to negotiate. The capture of Verdun would
break the heart of France and “England’s sword would be
knocked out of her hand”. London and Paris would sue for
peace and a settlement might be reached on the basis of the
status quo. Unfortimately it was precisely at this time that
Bethmann Hollweg had sadly reached the conclusion that
“after these gigantic events there can be no stains quo”.

Nevertheless, Falkenhayn’s proposals received the Im-
perial approval and on February 21, 1916, the great attack
upon Verdun was launched.

In the East, however, the calculations of the Chief of the
Imperial General Staff had gone awry. He had reckoned
that the moral and material defeats inflicted on the Russians
during the summer of 1915 would incapacitate them for
some considerable period of time, but he had seriously under-
estimated the Slav capacity for recuperation and resiUence.
With the Tsar in personal command of his European armies
and Alexeiev as Chief of Staff, the Russian forces were re-
organized and re-equipped with rifles and guns which had
been brought from England and America, via Japan. A
new group of armies under General Ewart was concentrated
on a narrow strip of the German front between Narotch and
Lake Vishniev, where it was proposed to break through the
denuded hne and force a road to Kovno. With the depleted
forces at his disposal, Hindenburg was able to oppose only
66 German battahons to 400 Russian. He had no reserves.

The offensive opened on March 19. It was the first time
that HLH had been engaged in a defensive battle, and they
were only able to meet the Russian attacks by withdrawing
troops from the points in the hne where danger seemed
least and concentrating them at those where the pressure
was most severe. They were forced to give ground, but so
resolutely did they fight off thrust after thrust that the line
remained unbroken, and by March 28 the Russian offensive

TANNENBEKG AND PLESS

67

had been brought to a standstill. From then until the
summer a quiet period intervened in the East. The Russians
were preparing for their next onslaught, and the Austrians
were engaged in an offensive on the Itahan front. Mean-
while, the G-erman forces waited in anxious anticipation of
what might follow.

That which was to follow came with appalling suddenness.
On Time 4, a new Russian army under Brussilov fell upon
the Austrian front, breaking through at Lutsk, capturing
an entire army of 250,000 men, together with all its guns
and equipment, and advancing some thirty-seven miles. In
a month he had taken a further 100,000 prisoners and had
cleared an area two hundred miles wide and in places sixty
miles deep.

From this moment dated Falkenhayn’s echpse, for he was
held powerless in the West and could do nothing. The opera-
tions around Yerdun, though they had inflicted ghastly
losses on the French, had cost the Germans almost as
dearly. Moreover, they had failed in their two initial
objectives. The French bled, but they did not bleed to death.
Verdun did not fall and the AUies were not prevented from
launching their own offensive on the Somme at the end of
June. Though this attack was a failure, German troops
were too occupied elsewhere to organise a counter-offensive.
The star of the Easterners was coming into the ascendant.

At the beginning of June, Hindenburg and Ludendorff
were summoned to Pless to confer with the Emperor on the
situation in the East. They declared that the only means of
salvation lay in a unified command, but to this the Austrians
would not yet agree. Disaster came hard upon the heels
of disaster. By the end of July the Russians had captured
Czernovitz, and the Itahans, against whom Conrad’s offen-
sive had to be abandoned, had taken Gorizia. On all fronts
the German armies were on the defensive, and hard-pressed.
AU opposition subsided in the face of such stern necessity,
and at a second conference at Pless, on July 27, it was agreed

68

TANNENBEEG AND PLESS

that Hindenburg should take over the command of the
whole Eastern Front as far south as Brody, east of Lemberg,
with headquarters at Brest-Litovsk.

Opposition to the extension of Hindenburg’s sphere of
command had not been confined to the Austrians. Falken-
hayn resisted most vehemently this increase in the power
of his rivals, sensing therein the prelude to his own downfall.
But now the Emperor and “the Hydra” were giving ear to a
new sound, which, beginning as a murmur among the dead
reeds of Fallcenhayn’s shattered reputation, was now in-
creasing rapidly to the roar of a popular demand. “Falken-
hayn must go! Hindenburg to the rescue!”

The party leaders too had become alarmed, and chief
amongst them in activity was Dr. Erzberger of the Centre
Party, himself closely allied with Tirpitz, Falkenhayn’s
enemy. Erzberger had become convinced that a change in
the Supreme Command was absolutely essential if Germany
were to be saved, and to this end he visited the princes
of South Germany, the Kings of Bavaria and Wurttemberg,
and the Grand Duke of Baden, to convert them to his views.
They agreed with him and consented to his conveying the
united expression of their alarm to the Emperor Franz
Joseph, with the request that he would intervene. Erzberger
went forthwith to Vienna and, having been equally successful
there, sought out the Emperor at Pless and confronted
him with an ultimatum. Either Falkenhayn must go or the
German priuces and the Austrian Emperor would press for
the immediate conclusion of peace.

Wilhehn II, with this clamour in his ears, in the course
of the conversations at Pless, which at times became acri-
monious, decided in favour of Hindenburg and Ludendorfi,
and against Falkenhayn, and this so piqued the latter
that he did not appear at the Imperial dinner-table.
Hopes arose that he was so deeply offended that he might
take his departure, but the Chief of the General Staff
emerged from his sulks and sought to strengthen his position.

TAKNENBBEG AND PLESS

69

He went to Berlin to rally the Chancellor, to Teschen to
mobilize the support of Austrian G.H.Q.; he sought to
placate HLH by consulting them at every turn. All was in
vain; the thumb of popular opinion was turned down; the
cry was “Habet!”

Meanwhile at Brest-Litovsk there were discomfort and
jubilation. Here the Headquarters Stafi were housed in
their special train in far from ideal circumstances. The
August sun beat pitilessly down on the steel roof and made
the cramped space unendurable. There was no room to
work, and such as there was, was encumbered by the big
staff-maps. Hoffmann alone succeeded in making himself
comfortable, and the ingenuity which he displayed in the
use of what he called his “salon” was a source of continuous
amazement. Soon, however, on Ludendorff’s suggestion,
Headquarters were moved into the Citadel, the only habit-
able place in the city, which had been burned by the Russians
before its evacuation.

But HLH had considerable cause for satisfaction. They
were able to repulse the Russian attacks upon their own
front and, by a judicious stiffening of Austrian troops by
German battalions, succeeded in persuading their allies to
stand. It was believed also that the second conference at
Pless had seriously shaken FaUrenhayn’s position and had
strengthened theirs. The days of their eclipse were over.

Judge then of their alarm, surprise, and indignation
when, by the middle of August 1916, it appeared that the
impossible had happened and Falkenhayn, unsuccessful in
enhsting support in any other direction, had re-established
his hold over the Emperor. Telegrams were received from
Pless instructing HLH to confine their attention to their
own front, and the Imperial ear was deaf to their protests
against Falkenhayn’s decision to withdraw further troops
from their command. Hindenburg was in favour of com-
promise — “He has been repeating since yesterday, ‘Yes,
what my Edng commands, that must I do’,” writes

70 TANNENBERG AND BLESS

HofEmann furiously — but Ludendorfi sent ofi an orderly
with a request to be allowed to resign. It was only in the
face of this rupture of their union that the Marshal could be
persuaded to ask the Emperor for an audience. The request
was refused, and a long despatch was prepared instead. On
Hofimann’s earnest entreaty LudendorS agreed to postpone
his resignation until after the Imperial reply was received,
and when this reply arrived on August 24, and was found to
be graciously platitudinous, he allowed himself to be per-
suaded to reflect once more.

This crisis would seem to have affected Hindenburg more
deeply than anything which had gone before. In the pre-
vious disputes with G.H.Q. Hoffmann continuously refers
to his “Olympian calm”, but now he records that “the
Field-Marshal is in a state of great excitement”. It was the
last round, and Palkenhayn might conceivably have won it
had not a further error in his calculations been revealed at
this moment.

Ever since the Russian victory of Lutsk and the penetra-
tion of the Austrian hne in June it had become apparent
that Rumania would now inevitably throw in her lot with
the Alhes. This, indeed, had been one of the secondary
objects of Brussilov’s offensive and its success was assured.
The German General Staff had at once become reconciled
to this and had conferred with the General Staffs of Austria-
Himgary, Bulgaria, and Turkey as to what measures should
be taken to meet this new contingency. Falkenhayn, how-
ever, had been convinced that no move would be made by
the Rumanians imtil after the harvest was in, that is to say,
mitil the autumn. How completely he had convinced both
himself and the Emperor of this may be seenfrom an incident
recounted by Colonel Bauer, of the Headquarters Staff.

“On the 27th of August, when I was wa lkin g in the castle
grounds at Bless with Freiherr von dem Bussche of the
Operations Section, we came upon the Kaiser, He was calm
and cheerful, and told us that Rumania would certainly

TANNENBERG AND PLESS

71

not declare war, that the reports were favourable, and that
in any case the maize harvest was in progress at the moment.
A few moments later we received news in our office that
Eumania had already declared war.”^

This incident finally rang Falkenhayn’s death-knell. He
had lost the confidence not only of the military, naval, and
civihan authorities, but even of his own Headquarters Stafi.
“I approached General von Plessen” (the Emperor’s Ad-
jutant-General), Colonel Bauer continues, “represented to
him that the only man who could help us was Ludendorff ,
and begged him to assist us.”

In face of the opposition of the Imperial Government,
the party leaders, “the Hydra”, and the General Staff, the
Emperor once again gave way.

At one o’clock in the afternoon of August 28, 1916,
Hindenburg in the citadel of Brest-Litovsk was called to
the telephone from Bless by General von Lyncker, the chief
of the Emperor’s Mihtary Cabinet. The Emperor, he said,
required the presence of the Marshal and Ludendorff at
Bless immediately. He would give no reason save that “The
position is serious”, but he added that Falkenhayn knew
nothing about the summons and would be informed of it
only after their arrival.®

To Ludendorff and Hoffmann such a summons could
mean only one thing. Falkenhayn had fallen or was at least
in the act of toppling. They administered a final “gingering-
up” to the Marshal before his departure, lest he might again
fall by the way of compromise.

^ At the same time Italy declared war on Germany.

® This procedure was not, however, adhered to. That same evemng
Lyncker informed Falkenhayn that the Emperor had decided to seek
independent mili tary advice and had called in Hindenburg and Luden-
dorfE. Falkenhayn was received later by the Emperor, to whom he pro-
tested that he regarded his action as “a sign of mistrust to which he could
not submit”. He begged leave to resign and this was granted him in a
letter signed “Your well-disposed and grateful King, Wilhelm” (Zwehl,
Erich von Falkenhayn, pp. 212-213).

72

TANNENBERG AND PRESS

A remarkable example of Hindenburg’s simplicity of
mind is offered bere. Despite the fact that he had struggled
for nearly a year against the views of Falkenhayn, and not-
withstanding the conviction of his immediate subordinates
that in the event of success he himself would succeed to
the Chief of the General Staff, the Marshal seems to have
had no idea that this summons to Pless betokened his own
victory and his translation to a higher sphere. So little did
he anticipate a long absence from his own headquarters at
Brest-Litovsk that he took only the minimum amount of
kit on his journey.

The writer was at first disposed to treat this lack of
perception on the part of the Marshal as a naivete to which
not much credence need be given, but, on discussing the
point with those who had had intimate knowledge of
Hindenburg’s character, he became convinced that this
incident illustrated, par excellence, the Marshal’s simple
nature and lack of ambition. Once the immediate excite-
ment of the dispute with Falkenhayn had passed, Hinden-
burg relapsed into his natural phlegmatic impassivity and
was incapable of connecting the summons to Pless with
the defeat of his opponent.

The Marshal and Ludendorff were met at the station on
their arrival at Pless, at 10 o’clock next morning, by General
von Lyncker, who at once informed them of their appoint-
ments as Chief and Second Chief of the General Staff of the
Army in the Field. They were greeted at the Schloss by the
Emperor, accompanied by the Kaiserin and the Chancellor,
and during a stroll in the garden the appointments were
personally confirmed. Ludendorff, though he secured per-
mission^ to change his title to “First Quartermaster-
General”, received express assurance that he should have
joint responsibihty in all decisions and measures that might
be taken.

The business of taking over was completed that after-
noon and Falkenhayn, who contemplated “only with great

TANNENBERG AND BLESS

73

anxiety the certainty that a change in office must inevitably
mean a change of system in the conduct of the war”, took
leave of his successor with a hand-shake and the words
“God help you and our Fatherland”.

Thus in the space of two days Hindenburg and Luden-
dorff found themselves in supreme command of the German
army, “supreme” in every sense of the word, for from that
day the position of the Emperor as All-Highest War Lord
became the merest fiction. Just two years ago they had
fought and won Tannenberg, two years of strenuous united
work and mighty victories lay behind them, and ahead of
them two further years of service in double harness before
the disappearance of LudendorfE from the scene.

PART II

EEEUZNACH AND SPA

II

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

1

Autumn, 1916. The German armies on the defensive on
every front, their alhes but little removed from defeat and
already showing a tendency to bicker amongst themselves;
Rumania added to the ranks of the enemy and capable of
putting three-quarters of a million fresh troops into the
field; Germany herself apprehensive, beginning to show
signs of war-weariness, with a government divided against
itself on many vital issues; the sinews of war unorganized
and the fundamentals of such organization not understood;
army commands in the West in the hands of incapable
generals and a General Headquarters Staff shaken in its
confidence in the Supreme Command; above all, a growing
shortage of food; such was the heritage to which Hinden-
burg and Ludendorff succeeded at Pless.

In comparison with the new tasks which faced them,
their previous problems in the East seemed almost par-
ochial. Now only did they realize the difficulties under
which their predecessor had laboured and which had in-
fluenced the decisions they had so strenuously opposed.
“I will not hesitate to admit”, wrote Hindenburg later,
“that it was only now that I fuUy realized all that the
Western armies had done hitherto”; and Ludendorff con-
fessed that he had not fully appreciated the danger of
transferring troops to the East and that, had he done so,

77 a

78 KREUZNACH AND SPA

lie would not have had fche courage to weaken the Western
Front.

One ray of sunlight penetrated this murky cloud.
Though in the East matters were far from satisfactory,
both Hindenburg and Ludendorfi knew that in leaving
Hofimann as Chief of Staff to the new Commander-in-
Chief, Prince Leopold of Bavaria, they had ensured a
continuity of pohcy and a unity of spirit with themselves,
and had provided against a repetition of that deplorable
wranghng between the High Command in the East and
Gr.H.Q. which had characterized their own tenure of of&ce.
Thus, though physically divided, the combination of HLH
stiU continued to function. Later, divergences of opinion
betweeen Hofimann and Ludendorfi marred the smooth
working of the triple formula, but for the time being all
was well, though there is no doubt that the absence of
Hofimann’s expert genius at G.H.Q. was greatly missed.
Had it been possible for him to accompany Hindenburg
and Ludendorfi to the West, that is to say, had HLH
remained united in space as weU as in spirit, his influence
over Ludendorfi might well have restrained the First
Quartermaster-General from his later poHtical excesses.

Immediate action was necessary to restore confidence
both on the Home Front and in the West. In this the Hinden-
burg legend played an enormous part. The German people,
whose knowledge of the true course of the war was strictly
regulated by official propaganda, had, nevertheless, a
feeling of hope rekindled on hearing that the victor of
Tannenberg had assumed supreme command. With “der
aUe Kerl” at the head, it was worth making new sacrifices
for victory, and a touching personal confidence in the
Marshal was manifested in a hundred ways. After Tannen-
berg the popular imagination had been kindled by
this figure of granite with its expressionless face and its
grave brooding eyes; now the belief of the people was
founded upon him. He was regarded as a friend and

haaimering nails into the wooden statue

k of Prussia

KREUZNACH AND SPA

79

confidant by thousands who had never seen him, and his
headquarters mail became clogged with so great a mass
of personal correspondence that the services of a special
officer were required to deal with it. People of every class
and standing opened their hearts to the Marshal, some
sent him verses in his honour, others asked for his patronage
in securing positions for themselves or for their children.
The clerk of a municipal council sought his help in securing
better means of removing refuse, and a German lady from
Chile wrote to ask his assistance in connection with the
loss of her certificate of baptism. Seldom in the history of
the German people was a military commander taken so com-
pletely into their hearts.

As in 1914, the machinery of official propaganda was
called into play to enhance the legend. New and higher
honours were heaped upon Hindenburg, and every means
was employed to keep his name and prestige before the
popular mind. A new battleship was christened Hindenburg
and his wife was invited to launch it. Parks, squares, and
cafes were, under official encouragement, accorded his name.
Above all there occurred that crowning episode of the Hinden-
burg cult, the erection of wooden colossi in his image.

These statues were symbolic. They were huge, crude,
and rugged, and recalled the primitive sculptures of an
earlier civilization. They were indeed a “throw-back” to
the images of Thor and Odin, the Nordic war-gods so dear
to an earlier German tradition, and to them were made
sacrifices in a truly Nordic spirit, sacrifices not of garlands
or of doves but of icon nails hammered into the figure till
they stood out “hke quills upon the fretful porpentine”.
The proceeds of the sale of the nails to the faithful who
desired the privilege of knocking them in went to the
German Red Cross.

Here the underlying streak of paganism in the German
character was . combined with Christian humanity, the
worship of the war-god with alleviation of the ghastly results

80

KREUZNAOH AND SPA

of sucli woxsliip. The contrast is sharp; the incongruity
almost frightening. The strange problem of German
psychology is here displayed, a fierce and pagan sadism
mingling in the German character with the Christian spirit
of human kindliness.

And if the figures and their cult were significant of the
German people as a whole, they were even more symbolic
of Hindenburg. A Wooden Titan he had become, and
remained so to the end; a figure-head carved upon the
prow of the German barque to ward ofi evil spirits and to
bring good fortrme; a dumb god to whom prayers might
be offered but from whom no word would come. The
German people had created for themselves an idol not of
clay but of wood, which the dry-rot of intrigue would
enter and destroy, leaving but a hollow shell.

2

To Hindenburg, and in a less degree to Ludendorfi, the
period immediately succeeding their translation to Pless
was one almost of bewilderment. Everything was so very
strange and new. The conditions of warfare to which they
had been accustomed in the East were of the old-fashioned
variety, and the experience gained therein availed them
comparatively little in meeting the new tasks with which
they were confronted. Their first act was to make a tour of
the Western Front, as much for their own education as to
enable the various army-group and army commanders to
become acquainted with the new High Command. On
September 6 a war-council was summoned at Cambrai, the
headquarters of the German Crown Prince, and thither
Hindenburg and Ludendorfi travelled by special train. At
every station they received an ovation, the troops crowding
the platforms to cheer “unseren alien Hindenburg”. As the
train pulled into Metz the usual accompaniment of cheering
and waving of caps was suddenly stilled by the scream of an

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

81

alarm siren. French, airmen swooped down over the station
and narrowly missed bombing the special train before being
driven ofi.

At Cambrai the Marshal presented field-marshals’ batons
to the Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria and the Duke
Albrecht of Wurttemberg, both army-group commanders,
and received repoits from -all quarters. He learnt for the
first time of the German inferiority in aircraft, artillery, and
the supply of ammunition in comparison with the Allies.
He saw a steel helmet for the first time and was informed of
its proved eflS.cacy in trench warfare. He inspected the
battlefield of the Somme with its “lunar landscape” of shell-
holes and trenches, which, for desolation, seemed even worse
than that of Verdun, and here perhaps for the first time he
realized the fuU horror of modern warfare. He was strangely
moved by this discovery, and the impression created re-
mained with him long after.

The extent of the demands which were made on the army in the
West was brought before my eyes quite vividly for the first time
during this visit to Prance [he wrote in 1919]. What a thankless task
it was for the commanders and troops, on whom pure defence was
imposed and who had to renounce the vision of a tangible victory.

. . . How many of our brave men have ever known this, the purest of
a soldier’s joys? They hardly ever saw anything but trenches and
shell-holes in and around which they fought with the enemy for
weeks and even months. ... I could now understand how everyone,
officers and men alike, longed to get away &om such an atmosphere.

Back at Pless by September 8, Hindenburg and Luden-
dorfE arrived at momentous decisions. The war, they were
now convinced, must be decided in the West. The Eastern
solution, so dear to their hearts at Lbtzen and Kovno and
Brest-Litovsk, was now a thing of the past. A victorious
peace was only possible by a defeat of the Anglo-French
armies in France and Flanders. To this end the running
sore of Verdun must be stopped, and the Western Front
made secure for defensive warfare until the shortage of men

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

and material had been made good and it was possible once
more to assume the offensive. On the other hand, the
Rumanians must be eliminated from the start, and this
task was entrusted to two mixed armies under Mackensen
and Falkenhayn. The absolute necessity of a unified com-
mand for the Central Powers was insisted upon, and the
conclusion of the negotiations already in progress was
hurried forward. Finally, it was imperative to shorten the
war, and to this end two madly conflicting methods were
advised: the invitation to the United States to mediate, and
the adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare.

The unification of command was achieved almost at once.
The Supreme War Command {Oberste Kriegsleitung) was
created and exercised by Hindenburg in the name of the
Emperor; the benefits of this system were therefore enjoyed
by the Central Powers for eighteen months before the Allies
could be persuaded to adopt it. His legend had carried
Hindenburg very far. Little more than two years before he
had been an unknown general in retirement, now he was in
virtual command of some six million men, the armies of
Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria.

But victory could not be conjured in a moment. It was
impossible to carry out with sufficient rapidity the opera-
tions necessary to liquidate the position at Verdun, and on
October 24 the French attacked to the east of the Meuse.
Fort Douaumont, for the capture of which so many German
lives had been sacrificed, was abandoned, and the fine was
only held with the greatest difficulty. In the same month,
however, the Allies were forced to break ofi the battle of the
Somme, and a temporary lull supervened along the Western
Front.

In the east the Rumanian campaign had been crowned
with victory. Mackensen and Falkenhayn, after a series of
successes on their respective fronts, joined hands, and on
December 3 they entered Bucharest. What remained of the
Rumanian army retreated northward; stiffened by Russian

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

83

reinforcements and French, and British equipment, they
formed a line on the Sereth which brought their opponents
j&nally to a halt and an armistice was concluded. LudendorS
had directed the campaign from Pless and had enabled
Hindenburg to make good his boast to the Emperor in
October: “By the end of the year the Eumanian campaign
will have come to a victorious close”. It was true, but the
success was quabfied. TheEumanian army, though defeated,
had not been annihilated, and, above aU, the German pursuit
had not been swift enough to prevent the destruction of the
oil-fields whose production was so necessary to Germany.
Only the vast stores of grain fell into the hands of the
Central Powers, but even these were not sufficient to satisfy
the clamorous demands of their populations.

There remained the vital question of the supply of war
material, with its closely allied problem of labour, and in
addition the issue of peace by mediation and the task of
hmniliating the Alhes by the destruction of their commerce.
The handling of these non-military matters disclosed an
essential difierence in the characters of the two commanders.
Hindenburg disliked politics and frankly said so; he realized
his own lack of qualifications for dealing with such matters.
“It was against my incHnation to take any interest in current
politics. ... I had the feehng that the business of diplomacy
made unfamiliar demands on us Germans, and even after I
was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Field Army,
I never felt either the necessity nor inclination to mix my-
self up in pohtics more than was absolutely essential.”

Ludendorfi had no more aptitude for politics than Hinden-
burg, but he did not share his chief’s disinclination for them.
Though he entertained a lively contempt for politicians and
regarded the Home Front merely as so much material
which G.H.Q. could fashion as they would, Ludendorfi had
returned from the Cambrai Conference in September with
a strong conviction that his sphere of activities embraced
complete control of the civihan situation and of foreign

84

KREUZNACH AND SPA

poKcy. “Not only had I to probe deeply into the inner
workings of the war-direction, and get a grasp of both great
and small matters that affected the home life of the people,
but I had to famiharize myself with great world questions
which raised all sorts of problems.”

And here became evident the importance of those con-
ditions which Ludendorff had exacted from the Emperor
during their stroll in the castle gardens at Pless on August
28. Not for nothing had Ludendorff refused to accept the
title of “Second Chief of the Staff”, and insisted upon that
of “First Quartermaster-General”. For him the word
“second” no longer existed with regard to rank, though he
stdl remained only a heutenant-general; before he would
accept his position at all he had made it clear that he must
have “joint responsibihty in all decisions and measures
that might be taken”.

In principle this meant that he and the Marshal matured
their plans in common, and that Hindenburg then presented
them to the Emperor as nominal commander-in-chief; and
in military matters this procedure largely obtained. In
pohtics, however, the Marshal stood aloof and Ludendorff
acted alone. The Supreme Command became an imperium
in imp&rio, with the First Quartermaster-General negotiating
independently with the Emperor, with the Chancellor, with
the Foreign Ofl6.ce, with the party leaders in the Eeichstag,
with industrial magnates and trade-union ofldcials, in fact
with everyone who had to be subordinated to the will of
G.H.Q.

Gradually a complete dictatorship was built up on the
interpretation which Ludendorff put upon the word
“responsibihty”. For example, when the Imperial Chan-
cellor pursued some pohcy of which Ludendorff disapproved
or which he considered injurious to the conduct of the war,
he declared he could not assume “responsibihty” for such
action, and asked leave to resign. But it was the Chancellor
who resigned. By exercise of this method of “persuasion”

KEEUZNAOH AND SPA

85

tlie First Quartermaster-General forced everyone from the
Emperor downwards to give way to him. Someti m es he
obtained Hindenburg’s approval for his proposals, fre-
quently he made use of his name in negotiation, always his
final argument was, “The Field-Marshal and I will resign”.

In pursuing this policy of “persuasion” Ludendorff was
greatly aided by the fact that during the autumn and early
winter of 1916 Hindenburg was in very poor health. The
rigours of the campaigns in the East had made inroads
upon even his iron constitution, and now a Mnd of low
fever attacked him, so that, whether or no he had wished
to do so, he was in no shape to check the activities of his
dominating lieutenant. With his customary disregard of
opinion Ludendorfi pressed on along his tortuous way, sure
of the moral support of his chief in any crisis that might arise.

“I grant that I have covered many expressions of
opinion on pohtical matters with my name and responsi-
bility even when they were only loosely connected with
our mihtary situation at the time”, confessed Hindenburg.
“In such cases I thrust my views on no one. But whenever
anyone asked what I thought ... I saw no reason why
I should hold my peace.” Too frequently he gave his
approval without his opinion being asked, and in fact, in
pohtical afiairs his opinion was not always worth the
asking.

3

The first issue on which mihtary and pohtical views
came into conflict was in the matter of Poland. In the
middle of August 1916, the Governments in Berhn and
Vienna had reached an agreement to create, at some
future date, an independent Kingdom of Poland, with an
hereditary constitutional monarchy. This pohcy had been
warmly supported by the Governor-General of Warsaw,
General von Beseler, and by Ludendorff, both of whom
believed that it would be possible to create a Pohsh army.

86

KREUZNACH AND SPA

whicli, with, a stifiening of German oficers, would be
w illing to shed its blood in gratitude to its liberators. “Let
us found a Grand Duchy of Poland with a Polish army
under German ofl&cers”, wrote Ludendorif enthusiastic-
ally to the Foreign Minister, Zimmermann, in July. “Such
an army is bound to come one day, and at the present
moment we can make use of it.”

Falkenhayn, however, had been sceptical of such
gratitude (and this view Hindenburg undoubtedly shared)
and had protested against the immediate proclamation
of the Polish State. The Emperor had decided in his
favour and the plan had been pigeon-holed, the idea being
that it should be kept a secret. State secrets of this nature
are dMcult enough to guard in one capital. In two capitals
it is impossible to keep them, especially if one of these
capitals is Vienna, and by September the knowledge that
Polish independence had been agreed upon was common
property. Beseler and Ludendorff, who had even worked
out, on the basis of the Polish population, the number of
new divisions they would acquire, overcame Hindenburg’s
scruples, urging him to revive the plan and have the ofiGicial
proclamation made as soon as possible.

Now, however, the rbles were reversed. The Supreme
Command were in favour of the Polish Kingdom, the
Chancellor was opposed. Bethmann Hollweg had at last
determined to effect a separate peace with Eussia and had
found the Tsar disposed to negotiate. Informal preliminary
conversations had taken place at Stockholm between the
German industrial magnate, Stinnes, and Protopopoff,
Vice-President of the Duma. The increasingly serious
domestic situation within the Empire and fhe dominant
pro-German influence of the Tsaritsa assisted the prospects
of peace, and the Tsar had appointed as his Prime Minister
Baron Sturmer, a statesman notorious for his desire to
negotiate with Germany.

So far had the negotiations progressed by the beginning

KKEUZNACH AND SPA

87

of November that Lenin, writing in Geneva, was seriously '
concerned that their success might prevent the outbreak of
the Ee volution in Russia, and the Entente Governments
were equally disquieted at the prospect of Russia’s desertion.

But the Chancellor yielded to the demands of the Supreme
Command and Germany committed one of the worst
political blunders of the war. The Kingdom of Poland was
proclaimed on November 6, and with its proclamation
vanished all hopes of a separate peace with Russia.

The Supreme Command had got its way, but the policy
. was barren of results. The Poles accepted the gift of in-
dependence as nothing more than their due and had no
intention of placing their man-power at the disposal of the
Central Powers. Indeed they had never given any indica-
tion that there was the sUghtest chance of their doing so.
“No army without a government to direct it” wasPilsudski’s
watchword, and he saw no reason now to place a Polish
Army under the control of the Supreme Command. The
new divisions, so carefully calculated on paper, vanished
like a mirage. Snatching at the shadow, Germany had missed
the substance.

Though the sudden vacillation of the Chancellor had
tipped the scale at the critical moment, the burden of
responsibility must he with Hindenburg and LudendorfE,
and no hterary afterthoughts can relieve them of it. Had
Ludendorfi not been bhnded by the purely mihtary desire
for new divisions, however doubtful their origin, he must
have seen the superior advantage of a separate Russian
peace. Had Hindenburg stuck to the sceptical view which
he had held of Beseler’s original proposals, he might have
succeeded in furtherpostponing the proclamation, asEalken-
hayn had done before him.

The advantage to Germany would have been incalculable.
Peace with Russia at the end of 1916 would have released
Hoffmann’s army for service in the south and west, and would
have given again to Germany the numerical preponderance

88

KEBUZNACH AND SPA

slie had lost. Moreover, the Allied blockade would have been
broken and Germany could have secured those essential
supplies of food the lack of which was already beginning to
cripple her. A few months of peace in Russia might well
have staved off revolution, and, even if it had not, Germany
would have avoided the early contact with Bolshevism at
Brest-Litovsk which proved so disastrous to her.

By a major political blunder the Supreme Command had
failed to eliminate Russia from the ranks of Germany’s
enemies, but by a blunder of far greater proportions they
ensured the adherence to her opponents of the most power-
ful ally iu the world, the United States of America.

4

When Hindenburg and Ludendorff came to Bless, one of
the more pressing problems which confronted them was
that of the effect, both physical and psychological, of the
Alhed blockade. From the early days of the war the German
navy had been eliminated as an active factor. Save for the
gallant actions off Coronel and the Falkland Islands, the
less gallant shelling of Yarmouth and the Hartlepools, and
occasional forays in the North Sea, one of which developed
into the battle of Jutland, the German Fleet had remained
inactive. On aU the Seven Seas the Alhed navies were
dominant and the steel ring around the Central Empires
was complete.

As a result, by 1916 seventy million Germans were hving
on severely reduced rations and thousands of them were
slowly succumbing to the effects. On the other hand, supphes
of every kind were flowing unchecked into the Alhed
countries from America and there remained to Germany
but one weapon to combat both blockade and supply —
submarine warfare in its unrestricted form.

This method had been urged by Admiral von Tirpitz as
early as 1915, but had been vetoed by the Chancellor, who

KREUZNACH AND SPA

89

saw too clearly tlie inevitable results of sucb a pobcy and
was determ in ed to avoid at all costs a conflict witb tbe
United States. Again in March 1916 both Falkenhayn and
Tirpitz urged upon the Emperor the necessity of declar-
ing unrestricted U-boat warfare upon neutrals as well as
belhgerents, and again Bethmann Hollweg triumphed in
the cause of reason, and to such good purpose that Tirpitz
resigned from the Ministry of Marine.

The question was once more fully discussed at Hess two
days after the appointment of Hindenburg and Ludendorfi
in August 1916, and on this occasion both agreed with the
Chancellor in opposing the Naval Stafi. The moment for
unrestricted warfare was not thought propitious. Both the
Chancellor and the Generals reahzed its probable efiect upon
neutral countries, but whereas the former dreaded the entry
of the United States into the war, the latter were only
thinking in terms of Holland and Denmark.

To the Supreme Command America was a strange and
distant country, unorganized and undiscipliaed, presided
over by a professorial crank. Even suppose she could raise
an army it would be years before it could be forged into a
fighting machine, and its transport to Europe would produce
further difidculties. “I am not interested in a contest between
armed mobs”, rephed the great Moltke when asked in 1864
his opinion of the operations of Grant and Lee before
Eichmond, and the opinion of the German General Stafi
had changed httle in fifty years.

The opposition of the Supreme Command was actuated
by a fear that, with the issue of the Kumanian campaign
still uncertain, if Holland and Denmark joined the Alhes,
there would not be suj0S.cient troops available to meet the
advancing Dutch and Danish divisions. They did not, how-
ever, reject the principle of unrestricted submariue warfare,
and extracted from the Chancellor the concession that “the
decision to carry on the submarine campaign in the form of
a ‘War Zone’ would depend on the declaration of the Field-

90

KRBUZNACH AND SPA

Marshal”. In other words, unrestricted submarine warfare
was to start when Hindenburg and Ludendorff wanted it
to start.

But the Reichstag would not allow this concession to go
unchallenged. The parties of the Left, who were more closely
in touch with the Government, strongly opposed both the
expediency of the submarine campaign and the handing-over
of power in such a wholesale manner to the General Staff.
The parties of the Right espoused the views of the Supreme
Command with equal violence. The debates were fierce and
bitter. The chmax came on October 16, when Brzberger,
ever the friend and ally of Ludendorff, proposed in the
name of the Centre Party, and secured adoption by a
majority of the house, a motion momentous in the pohtical
hfe of Germany:

The Imperial Chancellor is solely responsible to the Eeichstag for
all political decisions in connection with the war. In taking his
decisions the Imperial Chancellor must rely upon the views of the
Supreme Command. If it is decided to initiate a ruthless submarine
campaign, the Imperial Chancellor can be certain of the support of
the Reichstag.

Constitutionally, this resolution marked the abdication of
power by the Reichstag in favour of the General Staff, and
the confirmation of the mihtary dictatorship of Hindenburg
and Ludendorff. Its introduction was a pusillanimous
attempt on the part of Erzberger to bring the existing
situation into conformity with the Constitution. In effect,
it began the destruction of the Bismarckian regime which
was completed some eight months later, when, at the behest
of the Supreme Command, the Emperor was forced to dis-
miss his Chancellor and to appoint as his successor a man
whom he did not even know.

By the close of the year the situation had become more
propitious for the introduction of a ruthless submarine
warfare. The Rumanian defeats had heartened the High
Command, and the failure of the German peace offer of

KREUZNACH AND SPA

91

December, to wbich Hindenburg and Ludendorff bad agreed
after tbe capture of Douaumont by the French, had con-
vinced them that a peace by negotiation was at the moment
impossible. Moreover, it was imperative to strike a blow at
the foreign munition supplies of the Entente, and an end
to the war must be sought. Conferences took place with
the Naval Stafi, whose statistics appeared convincing and
who calculated that economically the case in favour of
unrestricted submarine warfare was unassailable. Un-
fortunately the statistics of the Naval StaS had failed to
take into consideration certain doubtful factors, amongst
them the capacity for endurance of the British people, and
their economic calculations were not only academic but
irrelevant. But in Ludendorfi they found a ready convert,
and Ludendorfi worked upon Hindenburg.

How far the Marshal was himself entirely convinced of
the necessity of this drastic step it is difficult to say. It is
certain that his native shrewdness must have instinctively
warned him against a policy which failed completely to trans-
late into action the will of the nation. It must have seemed
all very worrying and irregular to him. But Ludendorfi was
convinced, and so completely had Hindenburg been absorbed
into the personahty of his coadjutor that he gave his agree-
ment. As a result, an imperious telegram was despatched to
the Chancellor by the Chief of the General Stafi on December
26: “A ruthless submarine campaign is the only means of
carrying the war to a rapid conclusion. . . . The military
position does not allow us to postpone this measure.” The
Chancellor demurred. Ludendorfi insisted. A council was
called at Bless on January 9, 1917.

The Emperor presided, pale and excited; to one side of him,
correct and rigid, sat Hindenburg and Ludendorfi; at the
other, enthusiastic and confident. Admiral von Holtzendorf,
Chief of the Naval Staff; opposite, the tail, weary figure of
the already defeated Chancellor. In attendance the “Hydra”
— Valentini, Lyncker, Muller. Holtzendorf speaks first, full

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

of the arrogance of victory. England will be defeated in
six months, suing for peace. Holland and Denmark? They
will not dare to move. America? ‘T give your Majesty my
word as an officer that not one American will land on the
Continent.”

Hindenburg speaks briefly, laying stress merely on his
belief that a decrease of the supphes of munitions from
America to the Allies will result from the measure.

The Emperor’s eyes turn to BethmannHollweg. The Chan-
cellor wavers. What is the use of going on? The demand
is so unanimous, so confident. He is so tired. Deeply moved,
he states for the last time his objection to unrestricted
U-boat warfare, his great fear of the entry of America into
the ranks of the enemy. He pauses and then surrenders. He
adds that, in view of the changed views of the High Command
and the unequivocal statements of the Naval Stafi con-
cerning the success to be expected, he wishes to withdraw
his opposition.

The Emperor, who has followed the Chancellor’s remarks
with great impatience and disapproval, declares im-
mediately that ruthless U-boat warfare is thenceforth
decided upon and that it is the duty of the diplomats to
make clear to the neutrals the necessity for taking this step.

“Finis Oermaniae” , wrote Valentini in his diary.

On January 31 there were presented at Washington the
Note declaring the commencement of unrestricted warfare
and at the same time a statement of the German terms for
peace. “The only German conditions”, writes Ludendorfi,
“which ever reached the enemy from our side with any co-
operation on my part.” The reply of the United States was
immediate and emphatic. Aheady shocked and enraged
by the loss of American lives in the Lusitania and the
Arabic, and at the torpedoing of the hospital ship Sussex,
American pubHc opinion was unanimously behind the
President in his handling of the German declaration.
Diplomatic relations between the United States and

KREUZNACH AND SPA

93

Germany were broken ofi on February 3, and war was
declared on April 7. Three months later tke first American
troops landed in France, and by November they were in
the fighting line.

If the error of the Supreme Command in the matter of
Polish independence had been detrimental, their blunder
in insisting on the unrestricted submarine warfare was
catastrophic. The risks involved were so great that it seems
impossible that they could have been adequately weighed
in the balance. Yet even writing ex post facto, with the full
knowledge of what American intervention had meant,
Hindenburg in his Memoirs attempts to justify the decision
on grounds of expediency. ‘Tn any case”, he writes, “the
adoption of unrestricted U-boat warfare, with its alluring
prospects, increased the moral resolution of both the army
and nation to continue the war on land for a long time to
come.”

How high a price this was to pay and how much more
might have been gained by waiting is fully realized by
Mr. Winston Churchill:

If tte Germans had waited to declare unrestricted U-boat war
until the summer, there would have been no unlimited U-boat war
and consequently no intervention of the United States. If the Allies
had been left to face the collapse of Russia without being austamed
by the intervention of the United States, it seems certain that Prance
could not have survived the year, and the war would have ended in a
peace by negotiation, or, in other words, a German victory. Had
Russia lasted two months less, had Germany refrained for two
months more, the whole course of events would have been revolu-
tionized. Either Russian endurance or German impatience was
required to secure the entry of the United States.

The first six montlis of the Hindenburg-Ludendorfi
condominium had brought great military victories without
achieving the annihilation of the enemy, and at the same
time two momentous mistakes had been made which spelt
the ultimate defeat of Germany.

H

94

KREUZNACH AND SPA

5

The consultation at Cambrai and the first tour of the
Western Front in September 1916 had convinced the new
High Command that the line must be shortened and
rendered secure for defensive operations. With the spring,
heavy Allied attacks must be expected and the long line,
bulging forwards and backwards into salients, could no
longer be safely held by the diminished German forces.
The capture of Douaumont had made a deep impression
on the German High Command and had taught them a
lesson. Despite the danger of shock to morale it was essential
to withdraw to stronger defensive positions.

The line selected ran from Arras, west of Cambrai,
through St. Quentin and La Fere, to Vailly-sur-Aisne, and
here was constructed that powerful strategic position called
officially the Siegfried Stellung, but known to history as
the “Hindenburg Line”. Work on these fortifications con-
tinued throughout the winter of 1916 and the early spring
of 1917, and by March the German front had been re-
estabhshed in a masterpiece of concrete and armour. Be-
tween the old line and the new the ground was systematic-
ally devastated. Houses were destroyed,^ farms burned,
orchards uprooted, and roads obliterated. The Crown Prince
Rupprecht of Bavaria protested strongly to Ludendorfi
against the extreme rigour of the devastation, but his
objections were overruled and he was forced to comply.
Complete and utter ruin remained. Yet so skilfully was the
operation carried out that the old line had been evacuated
and the troops established in then: new positions before
the AUies were aware of what was afoot. Advancing
cautiously, British and French troops found devastation

^ Suck few buildings as were left were mined. Two Erencb deputies
were blown up in the Town Hall of Bapaume and part of an English
divisional stafi sufiered the same fate.

KREUZNACH AM) SPA

96

such as they had not dreamed of, and before them frowned
the bastions of the Hindenburg Line.

Into the construction of this position the Field-Marshal,
on his recovery, had thrown himself heart and soul. This
was war, far more acceptable to him than wrangling and
fencing with pohticians in Pless and Berhn. Ludendorff
could attend to that. In February General Headquarters
were moved from Pless to Kreuznach, a town in the Rhme-
land, pleasantly connected in Hindenburg’s mind with
memories of his period of service as Chief of Staff of the
Ehine Province, and here he re-estabhshed the life of
routine which had characterized his sojourn iu Ldtzen,
Posen, and Kovno. War suited Hindenburg, as he said,
“hke a summer hohday”. He slept well and regularly, ate
enormously and drank sufficiently. The responsibilities of
his position and the dangers of the situation made no in-
roads upon his constitution. His phlegmatic paohyder-
mity saved him from those brain-storms and agitations
which assailed Ludendorfi’s more sensitively attuned
mind. A Wooden Titan, he stood strongly planted in
the soil.

In Kreuznach, as elsewhere, he was the subject of endless
veneration. Youths, about to become his soldiers, serenaded
him before departing for their depots, and his quarters
were daily decorated with fresh cut flowers by the yormg
ladies of the town. He accepted these attentions with grufl
acknowledgments; his rare demonstrations of tenderness
were reserved for children.

Each day as he passed from his quarters to his office, a
little boy in an infantryman’s hehnet stood stiffly to atten-
tion and saluted him with a toy rifle. With unsmiling gravity
the Marshal regularly acknowledged the salute with the
same punctiho he would have given to that of a real sentry.
One morning the child appeared in a new glory. From some-
where he had acquired the headgear of a Prussian Uhlan and,
bursting with pride, he awaited the arrival of the Marshal.

96

KKEUZNACH AND SPA

He saluted as usual, but to bis surprise Hindenbuxg stopped
and regarded him gravely.

“You’re wrong”, be said. “You’re not an infantryman
now, you’re an Ublan. Tbe cavalry salute like tbis.” And
before bis astonished staff be went tbrougb tbe regulation
movements of tbe cavaby salute. “Do it right next time”,
be admonished and passed on.

Tbe boy never forgot, and each day gave bis hero tbe
salute in accordance with whichever head-dress be was
wearing. Some weeks later on bis birthday be received a
photograph inscribed in that square unmistakable script,
“Meinem kleinen Soldaten — Hindenburg” .

It was at Kireuznacb that tbe Marshal spent bis seventieth
birthday. Tbe day was one of celebration and congratula-
tions. Tbe Emperor was bis first caller and warmly
greeted him; bis staff followed, then representatives of
tbe town and neighbourhood, then a long fine of soldiers,
recruits, and sick and wounded from tbe convalescent
hospitals, and finally veterans who bad fought with him in
days long past. In tbe evening there was a dinner of honour
and tbe Emperor proposed toasts. But an alarming rumour
spread that tbe AUied airmen were about to celebrate tbe
birthday by a raid of extraordinary proportions on G.H.Q.
Lights were extinguished and tbe anti-aircraft artillery
opened up a heavy barrage. “Thanks to tbe high rate of
fire,” Hindenburg records, “tbe available ammunition
suppbes were speedily exhausted, so that I could sleep in
peace with tbe thought that I should be disturbed no more.”

Tbe raid did not materialize, but when they met next
morning tbe Emperor produced a large vase filled with
fragments of German shells which bad been collected in tbe
garden of his villa. There bad been danger in Eireuznacb
that night after all!

The Hindenburg Line bad barely been completed in
time. Only a month elapsed between tbe evacuation of tbe
old positions and tbe sprmg offensive of tbe Entente. For

Imperial War Museum Photograph Copyright reserved

HINDENBUKa WITH WOTTlSFBE-n O^T TTT« BTTjTTT-nAV nOTHTiT^T? 9 ^tt^ iqt-

KRBUZNACH AND SPA

97

the Allies, too, had had a change of command. “Papa”
JofEre had lost on the Somme the reputation he had gained
on the Marne, and in his stead reigned General Nivelle,
the brilliant captor of Douaumont, a disciple of shock
tactics with a contempt for the policy of his predecessor,
“le vieux grignoteur”.

Great confidence was reposed in Nivelle. Mr. Lloyd
George had such faith in him that, after the Calais Con-
ference in February, he had agreed to a form of unified
command and had ordered the reluctant Sir Douglas Haig
to take orders from the new French commander. The
dashing Nivelle carried before his optimistic impetuosity
all opposition to his plans. He proposed to deal the Germans
a staggering blow, and prepared to fight three battles
simultaneously. Haig, despite his expressed preference for
an advance in Flanders, was ordered to attack before Arras,
while Nivelle planned a double offensive on the Aisne and
on the Chemin des Dames.

In the preparation of these great battles Nivelle used none
of the surprise tactics by which his reputation had been
earned the previous October. For days the Allied intention
to attack was heralded by the fury of massed artillery and
trench-mortar fire. Then on April 9 Haig struck with
irresistible force. The British assault swept over the first,
second, and third German lines. The system of elastic
defence had not yet been perfected and failed against so
fierce an attack. The position was one of great crisis.

At Elreuznach there was consternation. Report after
report arrived telling of the capture of this and that
position. Had the Siegfried Stellung really failed? Pale-
lipped staff officers asked themselves this question and
turned from the answer with horror. This was Ludendorff’s
fifty-second birthday and he paced the operations room at
G.H.Q., a prey to nervous anxiety. It was Tannenberg over
again, and now there was no Hoffmann to restore confidence.
But now as then, in the moment of acute crisis, Hindenburg

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

rose magnificently to the emergency. Seated before the great
map on which the sagging battle-hne was charted from
hour to hour, he remained calm and unmoved. Ofhcers
coming to report to him left his room with fresh courage
and renewed confidence.

As the news grew worse and worse and the local disasters
multiplied in number, Hindenhurg walked through the
ofi&ces of Headquarters. He said little, only giving here and
there a direction, but his massive presence and unexcited
mien gave new hope to the stafi. Keturning to his own room,
he found Ludendorff pale with apprehension; with one of
his rare gestures of emotion the Marshal put his hand on his
colleague’s shoulder and said simply, “We have lived through
more critical times than this together”.

Hindenburg’s unshaken confidence was justified. The
moment of crisis came and passed, and disaster was staved
off. The British failed to reahze how very nearly they had
come to breaking the Hindenhurg Line and were unable to
exploit the successes they had gained. In the meantime
reinforcements reached the sorely tried Line. They had been
drawn from the Eastern Front, which, mercifully for the
Central Powers, was at the moment quiescent. Russia was
in the throes of the First Revolution of 1917 and the Alli ed
Powers had so far been unable to persuade the Provisional
Grovernment to undertake an offensive. Writing later,
Ludendorff confessed that had the Russians won even minor
successes in March and April it would have been impossible
either to reinforce or hold the Hindenhurg Line. But, as it
was, the gaps were filled, the losses made good, and counter-
attacks restored the balance, at least for the moment.

By now, however, NiveUe had opened his own bombard-
ment and guns of all cahbres from Soissons to Rheims were
raining death on the German fines. By April 16, the French
Commander-in-Chief calculated, the enemy defensive zone
would have been converted into a waste of rubble and
corpses, and all that were lucky enough to escape physical

KREUZNACH AND SPA

99

destruction would at least have been morally broken. He
therefore began his attack on that date. “Notre Tieure est
arrivee”, he told his troops in an order of the day and bade
them be in Laon the same evening. But the German defence
had not been shattered and the French advance stuck fast
upon the Chemin des Dames. By the second day’s fighting
it was clear that France had sustained her worst defeat of
the war. Mvelle threw forward a third army to support the
two already in action. All three were caught in the cross-fire
of German artillery and, unable to deploy, great masses of
troops were mown down where they stood. Haig tried to
reheve the pressure by renewing his own attack, but failed,
and Nivelle refused to retire. Again and again he massed his
divisions in a desperate attempt to bring ofi his grand coup,
but in vain. By May the army was so demorahzed that it
would fight no more. The defeated troops were withdrawn
and whole corps, infected with the virus of Bolshevism,
mounted the red flag, threatening to march upon Paris.
Nivelle, with the terrible stigma of buveur de sang ever
attached to his name, vanished into obscurity, leaving to
his successor, Petain, the gallant defender of Verdun, the
task of re-establishing the line and of liquidating the defec-
tion which defeat had bred in the French army.

For the moment all further danger of a French offensive
had ceased, but there was httle respite for the German
defenders. In June the British renewed the attack by blow-
ing up the Messines ridge and pressing on beyond it. This
they followed up with a great drive in Flanders which con-
tinued throughout the summer. Again the German positions
were threatened with disaster, and again the calm presence
of the Marshal maintained at Headquarters that confident
coxLcage which in the end achieved success. In the main the
lines held and disaster was averted if only by a narrow
margin.

Despite these successes, however, there was little to cheer
Hindenburg either in the military or the political situation.

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

The heavy fighting of the spring and summer had made
terrible inroads upon his reserves and there was no longer a
possibihty of replacing them. The Allies had succeeded in
galvanizing the Russian Front into fresh activity and he
dared not withdraw more troops from Hoffmann. Moreover,
after six months of unrestricted submarine warfare directed
against Great Britain, a campaign which had unquestion-
aMy inflicted very heavy losses upon her shipping and
had gravely afiected her food supply, she showed not the
sHghtest sign of collapse nor desire to negotiate. On the
contrary, it became evident that a grimmer aspect had
appeared in her attitude and that she was prepared to
fight on to the end, whatever the sacrifice. Notwithstanding
the proud boast of the Naval Staff at Pless in January,
American troops were already landing at French ports
and, although as yet unused to modern warfare, could
before long be used in quiet sectors, thereby releasing
veteran French and British troops for service elsewhere.
American supplies and American credit had already vastly
improved the Alhed position, and the co-operation of the
U.S. Fleet in the North Sea had rendered still more relent-
less the blockade of Germany, which was slowly strangling
soldier and non-combatant alike.

At home in Germany, onthefront-behind-the-front, there
were signs, many and eloquent, of war-weariness and dis-
satisfaction. The supply of war material was failing both in
quahty and quantity, and the morale of the country was at a
low ebb. Disbehef in a satisfactory outcome of the war spread
like a bhght over the country, and daily the section of the
people who desired peace at any price increased. The Socialist
deputies demanded a new franchise law for Prussia and
openly threatened revolution in the Reichstag. The Chan-
cellor himself was now certain of the ultimate defeat of
Germany, and the High Command became convinced that
they had not his full support. Ludendorff at once proceeded
to deal Bethmann HoUweg the coup dc gTdce, and to replace

KEEUZNACH AND SPA 101

Mm ■with, a man who would work in closer harmony with the
condominium.

6

Ever since Bethmann Hollweg’s opposition to an annexa-
tionist peace policy and the unrestricted U-boat campaign,
his enemies in the parties of the Right, together with
Erzberger, had planned his downfall. As early as February
25, 1917, they had met at the Hotel Adlon and had decided
to urge the Emperor to place the conduct of the war above
pohtics and make Hindenburg Chancellor. The plan failed
because the Marshal would have none of it. NotMng would
induce him to take control of the civil as well as the military
machine, and the conspirators retired baffled to bide their
time. But between the Marshal and the Chancellor there
was httle love lost. They avoided one another as much as
possible and, on the rare occasions when they shook hands,
Hindenburg shuddered at the contact with the grey ghost
of a man who seemed to portend disaster.

As the summer progressed, however, the attacks upon
Bethmann HoUweg, both inside and outside the Reichstag,
became intensified. As fate would have it, he who, more than
any other man, had most strenuously opposed the un-
restricted U-boat campaign, was now saddled by Ms enemies
with the responsibility both for its adoption and its failure.
Ludendorff, anxious to avoid a culpabihty that was most
justly Ms, made haste to persuade the Marshal that it was
essential, for the good of the country and in the cause of
victory, that a change of Chancellors should be made. In
conference at Kreuznach, Bethmann HoUweg’s successor
was discussed by Hindenburg and LudendorfE with certain
politicians and journahsts. The choice lay between Prince
Hatzfeldt and Prince Billow. Billow was agreed upon, and a
trusted emissary was despatched to Ms S'wiss retreat to
sound Mm on the matter. He consented and the conspiracy
went forward.

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

It was practically assumed from the start that neither of
these choices would be acceptable to the Emperor. Eiilow,
after the Daily Telegraph episode of 1908, saw no possible
chance of being recalled by Wilhehn II, and, even if he had
been, his appomtment as Chancellor would have met with
great opposition from the Emperor Francis Joseph, who
had not forgotten the offers of Austrian territory which
Billow had made to Italy in an effort to maintain her
neutrahty.

Of the two. Prince Hatzfeldt would, there is little doubt,
have been the sounder choice, for he enjoyed great popu-
larity with aU classes. Almost the last of the grands seigneurs,
Hatzfeldt held a position unique in Germany. An unfortun-
ate scandal shortly before the war had, however, alienated
the Emperor’s favours from him, and his chances of appoint-
ment to the Chancellorship were also, therefore, rather shght.

Apparently these unfavourable factors were either
ignored or discoimted by those who sought a successor to
Bethmann HoUweg, for Hatzfeldt was rejected by them,
not because he might prove unacceptable to the Emperor, but
because he might not prove suB&ciently tractable to the
views of the Supreme Command.

On June 19 Hindenburg wrote to the Chancellor urging
upon him the necessity of reviving the spiritual energy of
the country and the “will to victory”. He deplored the hope-
less tone of Bethmann Hollweg’s poHcy. “A revival of our
internal strength would be the most potent means of per-
suading our enemies of the futility of prolonging the war
until their own means of existence are in danger of destruc-
tion. On the other hand, every complaint of disappointed
hopes, every sign of exhaustion and longing for peace on
our part, or that of our aUies, any talk of the alleged im-
possibihty of standing another winter campaign, can only
have the effect of prolonging the war.”

The Chancellor’s reply disclosed so great a degree of hope-
lessness and depression that on June 27 Hindenburg

KREUZNACH AND SPA

103

appealed to the Emperor^ direct. “Our greatest anxiety at
this moment”, he wrote, “is the decline in the national
spirit. It must he revived or we shah lose the war ... for this
it is necessary to solve those economic problems which are
the most difficult and are of the greatest importance for the
future. The question arises whether the Chancellor is capable
of solving these problems — and they must be correctly
solved or we are lost.”

The next move was made by Erzberger in the Central
Committee of the Reichstag, when on July 6 he made a
bitter attack upon the conduct of the war. He demanded,
without actually attacking the Chancellor, that he should
reverse his pohcy and return to the idea of defence which
had been prescribed in the beginning. While the High Com-
mand would have to continue working at full pressure, it
was essential to form a large majority in the Reichstag un-
equivocally in favour of a defensive war as it had been laid
down on August 1, 1914. The world must be told that Ger-
many desired a peace based on compromise without any
forcible subjection of peoples or annexations, making clear
the fact that Germany would fight to the last man were such
an offer rejected.

Perturbed by these storm-signals, yet unwilhng to part
from the ablest Chancellor he had had since his dismissal of
Bismarck, the Emperor sent for Hindenburg and Luden-
dorff to hear their views. They were received on the morning
of July 7 and frankly proposed the resignation of Beth-
mann HoUweg and the succession of Billow. The Emperor
received both suggestions in silence and closed the audience
without further comment. This silence was interpreted by
the Marshal and Ludendorff as a sign of acquiescence; but
in this they were speedily undeceived by those of their
friends who were better acquainted with Wilhehn II’s
methods.

“What did the Emperor say when you suggested Billow
for Chancellor?” someone asked.

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

“He said nothing”, Ludendorff replied.

“Then we had better look for someone else,” said the
other, “for that is a sure sign that the Emperor will not
accept him.”

The moment of crisis was rapidly approaching. On the
following day the Chancellor in the Reichstag agreed to
support the resolution to be put forward by the Majority
Parties, and at the same time promised the Socialists that
the Reichstag franchise law should be apphed to the elec-
tions for the Prussian Diet. Now or never was the moment
for the High Command to act and, inspired by them,
Stresemann, who had become leader of the Liberal Party in
succession to Bassermann, fiercely criticized the Chancellor
by name in the Central Committee.

The whole conduct of the nation’s affairs [he declared] is being
earned on under the motto “We shall not succeed anyhow”.
Essentially the prevalent defeatism is due to the fact that the
nation believes that it is moving horn one failure to another
in this greatest of aU wars. . . . This tension is more than the
nation can bear in its present condition. A political defeat of
the utmost gravity is inevitable. ... A Chancellor must suc-
ceed in having his way; if he fails, he must draw the necessary
conclusions.

Here were Ludendorff’s ideas clothed in the vigorous
rhetoric of Stresemann, who had allowed himself to be the
parliamentary agent of the High Command. It was the first
time in German history that a member of the Reichstag
demanded a change of Government in such tones, and on the
following afternoon the Chancellor asked leave to resign, a
request to which he received a refusal the next mornine
(July 11).

But meantime the High Command had brought into play
a new and more potent factor. Through the agency of
Colonel Bauer they approached the German Crown Prince
and unpressed upon him the gravity of the position. The

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

105

Crown Prince returned to Berlin from ids headquarte'rs and
urged upon his father the necessity of Bethmann HoUweg’s
removal. The Emperor refused to dismiss his Chancellor,
and, on the advice of Bauer, the Crown Prince called a con-
ference of the Reichstag party leaders on the morning of
July 12. Bauer had already sounded out most of them
and was satisfied of their dissatisfaction with Bethmann
HoUweg.

It was a remarkable scene. Por the first time in forty-five
years a prince of the ruling house had thought fit to ac-
quaint himself at first hand with a pohtical situation. The
interview was carried out in tune with the best Prussian
traditions; shoulder to shoulder the party leaders, Erz-
berger, Westarp, Payer, Stresemann, David, and Martin,
stood to attention while the heir to the throne cross-
examined them, and Colonel Bauer took a record of their
answers. The manner of their inquisition was anything but
dignified.

The upshot of the “conference” was that, with the excep-
tion of the Social Democrat leader David, all the parties
represented went on record as being in opposition to Beth-
mann Hollweg. Erzberger, on behalf of the Centre, offered
a resolution to the effect that the Chancellor’s continuance
in office was “an obstacle to peace”, but left it to him to
determine the moment for his resignation; while Strese-
mann, for the National Liberals, informed the Vice-Chan-
cellor, Payer, that the crisis was insurmoimtable unless
Bethmarm Hollweg resigned.

The Crown Prince returned to the Bellevue Palace in the
afternoon and reported to his father the result of his en-
quiries. The two remained in close conversation, pacing up
and down the linden alleys of the park. At seven in the
evening the Chancellor arrived and was received dis-
courteously. The Emperor complained peevishly that he
had only conceded the Prussian franchise law in the expecta-
tion that the political crisis would be overcome thereby.

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

Bethmaan Hollweg replied that in any case the reform was
long overdue, and passed on to speak of the peace resolution
which the Majority Parties proposed to bring before the
Keichstag. The Emperor complained that he had not been
shown the text of the resolution and the Chancellor replied
that he had come that evening for the express purpose of
reading it to His Majesty. This he proceeded to do. The
Emperor’s only comment was that the text must be telephoned
at once to Hindenburg for his comment and within half an
hour the reply of the High Command had been received. It
protested against the omission of any thanks to the troops
and demanded two other alterations. With these views the
Emperor agreed.

At this moment the Supreme Command played its trump
card. General von Lyncker, the Chief of the Emperor’s
Mihtary Cabinet (that same Lyncker who had welcomed the
new-comers on their arrival at Pless), entered the room
with a message that Hindenburg and LudendorfI had tele-
phoned their resignations from Eireuznach and that those of
the whole General Headquarters Staff were on the way, the
grounds given being that they were unable further to co-
operate with Bethmann Hollweg as Chancellor.

The Emperor was furious at this barefaced blackmail and
told Lyncker to su mm on the Marshal and Ludendorff to
report to him in Berhn immediately. But the Chancellor
knew it was the end. There could be no choice in the matter;
the country would never stand for the resignation of the
High Command. A “Kanzler-Krise” might easily be trans-
formed into a “ Kaiser-Krise” , and a revolution was not far
off. Taking his leave of the Emperor, he returned to the Reichs-
hanzlei and wrote out his resignation. In order to embarrass
neither his Emperor nor the Supreme Command, the Chan-
cellor made no reference to the latter’s ultimatum and gave
the poHtical situation as his sole reason for retirement. With
him passed from the scene a great gentleman and the most
far-sighted and honest of Wilhelm IPs statesmen, whose

KEEUZNACH AND SPA 107

chief fault was that he saw too far ahead and lacked the
courage of his own convictions^

When therefore Hindenburg and Ludendorff arrived
again at the Schloss Bellevue on July 13, they found that
they had achieved their primary object in the elimination
of Bethmann Hollweg. But here a Mtch occurred in their
plans and the prophecies of their friends were fulfilled. It
was conveyed to them privately that under no circumstances
would the Emperor agree to accept Biilow as Chancellor
and that, when the question of a successor was discussed,
they would be wise in not pressing their candidate. There is
little doubt that had they repeated their threat of resigna-
tion they could have forced the Emperor to accept whom-
ever they pleased as Chancellor, for, so high was their
prestige and his so low, that he had no other alternative
but to accept any conditions which they cared to dictate.
But they were unwilling to make a further test of their
power, and without hesitation they abandoned the possible
candidature of Billow, though omitting to inform Erzberger
of their change of plan.

Thus when, having refused to consider Count von
Bernstorff and Count Hertling as possible Chancellors, the
Emperor sent Lyncker, Valentini, the Chief of his Civil
Cabinet, and General von Plessen, his aide-de-camp, to
confer with Hindenburg and Ludendorff, it was possible to
agree almost immediately on Dr. Michaelis, the Prussian
Food Controller, as Bethmann Hollweg’s successor. Luden-
dorfi declared that he strongly approved of Michaelis, who
had recently visited Kreuznach and had left behind him the
impression that as Chancellor he would be the right man in
the right place. Though, in common with the greater part

^ The High Conmaand did not hesitate to add insult to injury.
Scarcely had Bethmann Hollweg returned from Berlin to his estate at
Hohenfinow when a message arrived from Kreuznach offering him the
position of Ambassador at Constantinople. The offer was coldly refused,
but the incident had a curious parallel some fifteen years later.

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

of the population of Berlin, the Emperor had no knowledge
of his personality and had never even met him, he at once
accepted Michaehs, and appointed him on July 14. Thus
appeared the Chancellor of a Hundred Days.

At the Restaurant Hiller, Unter den Linden, where party
politicians discussed the latest gossip over their luncheon,
there was loud debate on July 14 as to the character of the
new Chancellor, the news of whose appointment had just
leaked through, though it had not yet been officially
announced. Nobody knew him save as a vague signature at
the bottom of ration-cards and Erlasse; he was just one of
the many high officials of the Prussian Civil Service who
had appeared as a result of the war. There entered Erz-
berger, who for some reason had not heard of the appoint-
ment and was still supremely confident that Billow was to
be the new Chancellor. Cries came from all sides; Erzberger
was sure to know.

“Do you know the new Chancellor?” they asked.

“Well, my dear friends, I should scarcely put out one
Chancellor if I didn’t know who was going to succeed him.”

“What, you really know Michaelis?”

'‘Michaelis?” gasped Erzberger, and nearly collapsed.

Just as the Reichstag resolution of the previous October
had struck the first blow at the position of the Crown in the
Bismarckian regime, so now with the dismissal of Bethmann
Hollweg there vanished the semblance of constitutional
government. In October 1916 the Reichstag had claimed
responsibOity “for aU political decisions in connection with
the war”; in July 1917, by conniving at the appointment
of Michaehs, they voluntarily abdicated this right. Eor
Michaehs regarded himself, quite accurately and not un-
naturaUy, as the nominee and mouthpiece of the High
Command, and made this clear to the Reichstag in his first
appearance before that body on July 19. “I do not consider
a body hke the German Reichstag a fit one to decide about
peace and war on its own initiative during the war”, he

KRBUZNACH AND SPA

109

declared, and frankly sought the advice of Ludendorff on
every decision. “I begged him to excuse me,” says Luden-
dorff, “but the Chancellor persisted, and we therefore
decided to comply. At the same time, we were desirous of
showing Dr. Michaehs what value we attached to con-
fidential collaboration with the Imperial Government and
both the Marshal and I frequently wrote in this sense to
the new Chancellor.”

Had the Reichstag had the coinage to demand of the
Emperor the dismissal of Michaelis there and then —
which was the only course which the Majority parties could
logically and honourably have pursued — much might have
been saved; as it was, they meekly allowed both their
authority and that of the Emperor to be usurped by
Ludendorff, who in his own name and that of Hindenburg
exercised dictatorial power over the country for the next
sixteen months.

The Reichstag lost its power through lack of courage
and, even more, through not knowing what it wanted.
Erom the first it realmed the futihty of Michaehs — “We
separated after our first meeting with the Chancellor under
such a cloud of depression that even Bethmann Hollweg’s
friends failed to derive any satisfaction from the embarrass-
ment of his opponents”, recorded von Payer. But yet three
precious months were allowed to elapse before the Reichstag
attempted to assert itself. For a hundred days it tolerated
the lacquey of the Supreme Command, and when it re-
cognized its error it was too late.

The Reichstag of Imperial Germany looked for its salva-
tion to a written Constitution, faihng to realize that in
national emergency it is practice and not theory that counts.
Sixteen years later, in 1933, having learned nothing by
previous misfortunes, the Reichstag of Repubhcan Germany
likewise placed its faith in solemn words and fundamental
oaths. In both cases the result was equally disastrous for
parliamentary institutions. There was, however, one great

I

110

KREUZNACH AND SPA

diSerence. In 1917 Hindenbnrg, as bead of the Supreme
Command, received the power; in 1933, as President of the
Repubhc, he abdicated it. In both cases it is doubtful
whether he realized what it was all about. In the first in-
stance LudendorfE’s influence in political affairs had become
paramount with the Marshal, and, in the second, the Palace
Camarilla played with him much the same role as the
“Hydra” with the Emperor.

The degree to which the Supreme Command had taken
control of the political Life of the country was very soon
seen in the handhng of the Peace Resolution by the Chan-
cellor before the Reichstag. This motion, originally spon-
sored by the Majority parties in an attempt to get back to
the original statements of war aims of August 1914, had had
to be amended and modified to meet the wishes of the High
Command. These amendments had formed the subject of
Bethmann Hollweg’s last audience with the Emperor, on
July 12, and the party leaders had redrafted the Resolution
to include them, on the condition that the new Chancellor
consented to make it the basis of his policy.

The Supreme Command, however, were still opposed in
principle to any peace resolution at all. They were not in
the least anxious to abandon the opportunity of annexing
fresh territory to the Empire, if such came their way. The
war had changed materially in character since its declara-
tion in 1914; it had become a grim struggle for existence,
and woe to the conquered. If in achieving victory — and
this to Ludendorff still seemed possible in the summer of
1917 — ^it were possible to secure spoils as well, so much the
better. In addition, it was feared that the sentiments ex-
pressed in the Resolution would exercise an adverse influ-
ence on the spirit of the troops and on the determination
of the people, while the enemy would construe it as a con-
fession of weakness.

In conjunction with the Chancellor, therefore, the High
Command first attempted to suppress the Resolution

KRBUZNACH AND SPA

111

altogether, but in this they were foiled by the Social Demo-
crats, who published the text in the Vorwarts for all Berlin
to read. Ludendorff then attempted in a series of personal
interviews to induce the party leaders to abandon the
Resolution, and succeeded in detaching from the Majority
Parties Stresemann’s National Liberals, with the exception
of a small Left Wing group under Richthofen. Scheidemann,
Erzberger, and Payer were not to be shaken, and Luden-
dorff withdrew his opposition to the progress of the Resolu-
tion rather than precipitate an open conflict. Michaelis,
however, was given instructions to render the final text of
the Resolution as innocuous as possible.

The Conservatives and Pan-Germans of the Vaterland
Front opposed the Peace Resolution with the greatest
bitterness, both inside and outside the Reichstag, and, in
so doing, they made free use of Hindenburg’s name, a name
which meant for many the last hope of a relatively tolerable
end to the war. Covert representations were made to the
Marshal from many quarters, that the more his name was
invoked in the strife of parties, the more quickly would the
last remnant of unity fall to pieces. Such diverse individuals
as Scheidemann, the Social Democrat leader, Niemann, the
representative of the High Command with the Emperor,
and Haeften, their representative at the Foreign Office,
urged upon him the necessity of taking steps to prevent
the continued misuse. All efforts were in vain. So dominated
was Hindenburg by Ludendorff that he was unable to
dissociate himself. The propaganda against the Resolution
continued and the Marshal’s reputation in the country
suffered accordingly.

The Resolution, as passed by the Reichstag on July 19,
was indeed harmless in wording, consisting mainly in a
repetition of the sentiment “We are not animated by any
desire for conquest”. It demanded a peace “by mutual
agreement and reconcfliation”, and protested against all
possible “acquisition of territory” and aU “political, eco-

112

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

nomic, and financial oppression”. But in every document
of this nature it is the spirit rather than the letter which
ranks foremost in importance, and more important than
either is the interpretation of both. For every man is free
to interpret a principle for himself and this freedom of
mental action was made clear by Michaelis, who gave his
support to the Eesolution “as I interpret it”, emphasizing
that he made this reservation on behalf of the Supreme
Command.

But the Reichstag refused to recognize the danger arising
from this ambiguity of phrase and the Resolution was passed
by the votes of the Social Democrats, the Centre, and the
Progressives, ironically enough, at the same time as new
and enormous war credits. With justifiable triumph could
the Chancellor write to the Crown Prince on July 25: “The
hateful Resolution has been passed by 212 votes to 126,
with 17 abstentions. I have deprived it of its greatest danger
by my interpretation, One can, in fact, make any peace one
likes, and still be in accord with the Resolution”.

Indeed one could, and this had from the first been in the
mind of at least one of its thxee leading sponsors. “You see.
Your Highness”, explained Erzberger, in discussing the
Resolution with Prince Max of Baden, “this way I get the
Longwy-Briey line by means of negotiation”. At a later
date it was even asserted that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
accorded with the terms of the Peace Resolution!

The importance attached by the Supreme Command to
their reservation to the Peace Resolution and their attitude
of open contempt for the Reichstag was most clearly shown
in connection with the Papal Peace Note of August 1917.
At the end of June, before the fall of Bethmann HoUweg,
the Papal Nuncio, Mgr. PaceUi (now Cardinal Secretary of
State), had approached both the Emperor and the Chan-
cellor on behalf of the Holy Father with a view to ascer-
taining the attitude of Germany in the matter of Belgium
and Alsace-Lorraine. His conversations elicited the views

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113

that while Gremany was prepared to restore to Belgium her
independence, this must be accompanied by sufficient safe-
guards to prevent the country from falling under the
pohtical, financial, and economic domination of England
and France. At the same time both the Emperor and Beth-
mann Hollweg declared that, if France showed signs of
wanting peace, the question of readjustment along the
frontier of the Reichsland would present no difficulty.

On this somewhat flimsy basis the Vatican issued its
Peace Note of August 1, and it was in anticipation of this
that Erzberger had so vehemently championed the Peace
Eesolution in the Reichstag. The papal proposals were
neither new nor starthng. It was urged that peace was im-
possible unless the occupied territories were evacuated and
that consequently Belgian independence must be restored,
with safeguards to ensure her future independence of other
Powers. Similarly, occupied German colonies and French
territory must be mutually surrendered.

The reply of the British Government, dehvered on August
21 and communicated by Pacelh to the Chancellor on the
30th, was a poHte refusal. The British aims were restated
in the triple formula of restoration, compensation, and
guarantees for the future which later became the broad
basis of the Treaty of Versailles. But at the same time it was
pointed out that discussion of peace terms was idle until
some official statement had been made by the German
Government as to the future status of Belgium. Simul-
taneously the Supreme Command were informed both by
the Foreign Minister, Herr von Kiihlmaim, and through
their own channels of information, that if a satisfactory
statement on Belgium were made there was a possibility of
opening discussions with the Entente.

The task of drawing up the German reply was nominally
one for the Government in conjunction with the Reichstag,
and a Committee of Seven was set up to prepare a draft
note. In effect, however, the terms of Germany’s answer

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were determined at a Crown Council held at Schloss Bellevue
on September 11. There were present the Emperor and the
Crown Prince, five Ministers including the Chancellor and
Kuhlmann, together with the Marshal, Ludendorff, and
Colonel-General von Falkenhausen. The latter, a hundred-
per-cent. annexationist, was for holding everything up to the
North Sea. Ludendorff was prepared to give up the Flanders
coast but insisted on the economic attachment of Belgium
to the Empire, the independence of Flanders, the cession of
Liege, and a lengthy occupation of Belgium by a German
army. Bdndenburg said nothing at all. The Emperor
admitted that hitherto he had shared the views of General
von Falkenhausen, but that recently Cardinal Hartmann
had urged him not to press for annexation as the clergy in
the new territories would be unreliable and the Walloons
insubordinate. However, if the annexation of Belgium were
no longer possible there must be compensation for Germany
elsewhere, and he had in mind, apart from the complete
destruction of British influence, the solution of the Flemish
question through the autonomous Council of Flanders, and
economic guarantees. No decision was reached and the
Council dispersed.

Meanwhile the Committee of Seven were demanding
that a definite statement on Belgium should be included in
the German Note of Reply, but to this Kuhlmann aswered
that a reference to the Peace Resolution was sufiS.cient.
Kuhlmann himself was opposed to the annexation of
Belgium, but he was equally opposed to making any pubhc
statement on the subject. To him Belgium was a valuable
pawn which must not be surrendered too soon in the
game. “Who told you that I am prepared to sell the horse
‘Belgium’?” he asked in conversation with Colonel von
Haeften, the representative of the Supreme Command at
the Foreign Office. “It is for me to decide that. At present
that horse is not for sale at all.”

The reply of Germany to the Papal Note, which was

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116

handed to Pacelli on September 19, contained no mention
therefore of Belgium and was but a spiritless document
calhng the attention of the Holy Father to the motives
which had am' mated the adoption of the Peace Resolution
in July. What, however, neither thp Reichstag nor the
Committee of Seven, nor indeed Kiihlmann himself, knew
was that Michaelis had, in collaboration with the Supreme
Command, drawn up a programme regarding Belgium
which provided for the permanent occupation of Li6ge.

On September 12, the day following the Crown Council,
the Chancellor had written to Hindenburg enquiring whether
the Supreme Command would be satisfied with a German
occupation of Liege for some years after the conclusion of
peace. The Marshal repbed that he was in complete agreement
with the view expressed by Ludendorfi at the Council that, for
the safety of the Rhineland, it was necessary that Liege should
remain permanently in German hands. Michaelis therefore,
on September 24, wrote secretly to PaceUi, and his letter
contained the true reply of the Supreme Command to the
Papal Note. “At the present stage”, he wrote, “we are not
yet in a position to comply with your Excellency’s desire or
to give a definite declaration regarding the intentions of the
Government with reference to Belgium and the guarantees
required. The reason does not exist in any objection on
principle by the Government to such a surrender. Its ex-
treme importance for the cause of peace is fully appreciated.
... On the contrary the objection consists in the fact that
certain essential prehminary conditions have not yet been
fulfilled.”

This communication, the full purport of which is suf-
ficiently clear beneath its tortuous language, was despatched
to the Nuncio without consultation with the Emperor or the
Cabinet and without the knowledge of the Reichstag or even
of the party leaders. From the dismissal and making of
Chancellors the Supreme Command had passed to the for-
mation and control of poHcy, and had now, through their

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KREUZNAOH AND SPA

tool the Chancellor, aspired to direct diplomatic negotiations.
Their short-sighted policy of annexation had destroyed all
hope of utilizing the not unpromising offer on the part of
the Pope, and was later to lead them to greater excesses of
error.

7

On a grey day in March 1917, just at the time when
German General Headquarters were being transferred from
Pless to Kreuznach, the streets and squares of Petrograd
were filled with mobs of men and women demonstrating
against the Government. This was no unusual sight in the
Tsar’s capital that winter, when strikes were frequent and
the population daily became more hungry for food and more
clamorous for peace. But on that day there seemed to be a
new note in the roar of the crowds and a new determination.
This was more than a demonstration, it was a revolt.

Suddenly there was a sound of galloping hoofs and there
came the dread cry of “The Cossacks!” The crowds separ-
ated hurriedly to left and right, crouching in doorways and
alleys to avoid the blows from the troopers’ whips. And then
a miracle happened. The Cossacks did not charge. Instead
they rode quietly amongst the crowds, laughing and jesting
with the people and exchanging with them the common
salutation of “Tovarish” .

It was this gesture of fraternization that caused the
Romanoff autocracy, which had ruled Russia for more than
three hundred years, to vanish in a day, and it needed but
the last tragic scene of abdication in a railway compartment
at Mogilev, some two weeks later, to set the seal of ratifica-
tion upon an already estabhshed fact.

By the Allies this new departure in the East was hailed
with relief and satisfaction. Failing to appreciate the fact
that one of the main causes of the overthrow of the Tsarist
regime was a deep-seated revolution against the prolonga-
tion of an intolerable war, the Governments of the Entente

KREUZNACH AND SPA

117

hastened to accord de jure recognition to the new Pro-
visional Government and to urge upon it the necessity of
prosecuting more relentlessly the campaign upon the
Eastern Front.

For the Central Powers conversely the Revolution of
March came as a disaster. Though hopes of a separate
peace hy direct negotiation with the Tsar’s government
had vanished with the proclamation of the Kingdom of
Poland in the previous November, the corruption and in-
efficiency of the Imperial regime had been an indirect ally
of Germany and had succeeded in bringing the war on the
Eastern Front virtually to a standstill.

The Supreme Command, already occupied with its pre-
parations to meet the Alhed spring ofiensive on the Western
Front, cast about for some weapon with which to sabotage
the Russian Provisional Government. Par better informed
as to the actual state of afiairs than were the Allies, the
High Command at once divined that the one weak spot
upon which to work was the war-weariness of Russia. The
Provisional Government, confronted with the problems of
a country already disintegrating into chaos, yet urged on
by the continual demands of the Allies to prepare a summer
offe nsi ve, presented an exposed position to the Central
Powers, who were quick to take advantage of it.

It so happened that a powerful weapon, which ultimately
turned out to be a boomerang of the most deadly nature,
was ready to hand. In the city of Zurich there hved a group
of Russian pohtical emigrants and refugees to whom the
news of the March Revolution in Petrograd came as the
dawning of a long-promised day. As bitterly opposed to the
pohcies of the Social Democrats and Liberals, who formed
the Provisional Government, as they had been to the auto-
crats and oligarchs of Tsarist days, they nevertheless recog-
nized that, for the first time since the abortive revolution
of 1905, their chance had come. The one great desire of
this band of Bolsheviks, which included Lenin, his wife

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Krupskaya, and Zinoviev, was to get back to Russia at the
earliest possible moment in order to capture the Revolution
and transform it into a proletarian and anti-imperialist
movement, with the immediate object of securing a cessa-
tion of hostihties on all fronts. Equally it became of the
most urgent importance both for the Provisional Govern-
ment and for the Allied Powers that these would-be sabo-
teurs of victory should remain where they were.

For this reason all apphcations of the Bolshevik leaders
to Petrograd for permission to return and to Great Britain
and France for assistance in doing so were met with a blank
refusal, and both Lenin and Zinoviev were plunged into the
deepest depression. At this moment the deus ex machinA
appeared in the shape of the German General Staff.

The attention of the High Command had been drawn to
the possibilities of conveying Lenin and his party from
Switzerland through Germany to Sweden and thereby
infecting the Russian Revolution with an anti-war virus
which would destroy it, at any rate in so far as the army was
concerned. The disintegration thus caused would be so great
that in her own good time Germany could have what she
wanted for the taking.

The plan commended itself to Ludendorff. Pressure was
brought to bear on the Foreign OfS.ce, and an agreement
was negotiated between the German Minister in Berne and
the Swiss Socialist, Fritz Flatten. In this unique inter-
national treaty between the editorial staff of a revolutionary
newspaper and the empire of the Hohenzollerns the con-
ditions of the journey were worked out with extraordinary
detail. Lenin demanded complete extra-territorial rights for
the train during the period of transit, and absolute freedom
from supervision for the personnel of the party, their pass-
ports, and their baggage. No one should have the right to
enter or leave the train throughout the journey (from this
latter provision grew the legend of the “sealed” train). On
their part, the emigrant group agreed to insist upon the

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119

release from Russia of a corresponding number of German
and Austrian civil prisoners.

How far Ludendorfi kept the control of these negotiations
in his own hands it is difihcult to say. It is certain that
Wilhelm II, Michaelis, and Hindenburg knew nothing of
them, and both Kiihlmann and Hoffmann, who might
naturally be expected to have known, protest their com-
plete ignorance. In his memoirs Ludendorff is anxious to
throw upon “the Government” the responsibihty for Lenin’s
passage, but the fact that neither the Emperor, the Chief of
the General Staff, the Chancellor, the Foreign Minister, nor
the Chief of the Staff in the East was informed of the course
of events, proves how completely at that period the First
Quartermaster-General was “the Government”.

Upon Ludendorff, and Ludendorff alone, must rest the
responsibility for Lenin’s return to Russia and all that it
implied.

He sought to deal a deadly blow on his Eastern Front,
and in this he was justified. In the same way that he sent
shells into the enemy trenches, or discharged poison gas at
them, so had he a right to use propaganda against the
enemy. If by this means he could destroy Russia and drive
her out of the war he was perfectly entitled to do so. As
Lenin admitted at the moment of his departure, “If Karl
Liebknecht were in Russia now, the Provisional Govern-
ment wordd permit him to return to Germany”. But
Ludendorff did not accurately estimate the calibre of the
men whom he sought to use and who, in their turn, were
using him.

For while Ludendorff was saying to himself “Lenin will
overthrow the Russian patriots and then I will strangle
Lenin and his friends”, Lenin was thinking, “I shall pass
through Germany in Ludendorff’s car, but for his services
I shall pay him in my own way”. There was never for a
moment the shghtest illusion amongst the Bolshevik emi-
grants, nor amongst their non-Russian comrades, as to

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either the motive which prompted Ludendorff’s action or
as to their ultimate aim once they had seized the power in
Russia. “We are fully aware of the fact that the German
Government allows the passage of the Russian inter-
nationalists only in order thus to strengthen the anti-war
movement in Russia”, declared a group of international
Socialists at the moment of Lenin’s departure.

The train-load of political dynamite steamed out of the
central station at Berne on April 8, 1917, and a week later,
(April 16) late in the evening, Lenin arrived in Petrograd
to he greeted with a tremendous ovation. Standing on an
armoured car he made his first public speech in Russia to
a cheering throng of workers, soldiers, and sailors, and in
the course of it made use of words which, had they been
reported, should have awakened Ludendorff to a realization
of what spirits he had conjured up — “The hour is not far
when, at the summons of our comrade Karl Liebknecht,
the German people will turn their weapons against their
capitahstic exploiters”.

The advent of Lenin and the anti-war activities of his
supporters were not in time to prevent the summer offensive
which the Allied Powers had cajoled the unfortunate
Kerensky into making. It was duly launched on July 1,
and the Russian troops fought with their customary courage
despite their acute war-weariness and lack of equipment.
Few events in the war were more tragic than this last
Alhed offensive on the Eastern Front, carried out by men
whose one desire was for peace and to return home, and of
whom, in many cases, only one in six or eight possessed a
rifle. By sheer impetus they achieved a not inconsiderable
advance, and within the fixst twenty-four hours had
captured more than 36,000 prisoners.

But this offensive neither surprised nor disconcerted
Hoffmann. The German counter-attack was begun on July
19, and it was then apparent how greatly the Russian
morale had suffered. Bolshevik agents appeared in every

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121

division and tte success of their work was only too clear;
regiment after regiment revolted, murdered its officers,
and then hesitated, not knowing what to do next. The
front was paralysed. The German advance gave that last
touch to the complete disintegration of the Russian army
which the Bolshevik agitation had initiated. The effect was
ghastly. A panic spread in the ranks of the army already
in a state of utter dissolution. There was scarcely any
question of resistance. The panic-stricken retreat paralysed
even the will of those individual regiments which were
prepared to take up fighting positions. The troops melted
away before the eyes of their commanders.

Tarnopol feU at the end of July 1917, and on September 2
the German armies crossed the Dvina, capturing Riga on the
following day. Only the difficulty of transport prevented a
more rapid advance, and hostihties on the Eastern Front
were virtually brought to an end by the middle of October
with the capture of the islands of Moon, Dago, and Osel, in
the Gulf of Riga.

But of what was happening behind the Russian hnes, of the
degree to which the seed of Bolshevik discord, implanted by
Lenin with the aid of Ludendorfi, was bearing fruit. Prince
Leopold of Bavaria and Hoffmann, sitting in the citadel of
Brest-Litovsk, knew little or nothing. They could not have
known that the opening of the July offensive had been the
signal for an abortive Bolshevik plot to arrest the Provisional
Government in Petrograd and to call upon every soldier at the
front to leave the trenches; nor could they foresee that the
German counter-attack would coincide with the unsuccessful
Bolshevik coup-d’etat of July 17-19. Furthermore, General
Kornilov had not informed them that after the fall of Riga
he had tried to establish a military dictatorship by force.
They had no conception of the chaos which reigned in the
capital nor of the prodigious pace at which the Provisional
Government, deserted by its aUies, was hurtling to destruc-
tion. They only knew that the front had become sufficiently

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quiet for troops to be taken out of the line and transferred
to the West, to be drilled and trained there for the new
task before them. But beyond this elementary yet import-
ant fact the German Headquarters were at a loss to know
what to make of the situation.

Thus they had no knowledge of the final collapse of
Kerensky and of the Bolshevik triumph of November 7.
Their mystification was increased when wireless operators
began to pick up messages addressed “To all”, sent out by
an unknown individual of the name of Trotsky, declaring
the desire of the new Soviet Government for peace. “We
cannot get a clear view of the Eussian situation as yet,”
Hoffmaim wrote in his diary on November 21; yet he urged
Count Herthng, who had succeeded Michaelis as the
Supreme Command’s nominee for the Chancellorship, to
declare Germany’s willingness to negotiate.

The uncertainty persisted until November 26. “Whether
they wiU [declare an Armistice] I cannot yet say,” recorded
Hoffmann on the morning of that day. “We have no clear
picture of what is hkely to happen in the interior of Russia
in the immediate future.”

But in the afternoon there arrived Trotsky’s formal pro-
posals for an armistice and Krylenko’s wireless message
proclaiming the definite cessation of hostihties. At last
something tangible had happened and Ho ffmann reported
by telephone to Eireuznach.

“Is it possible to negotiate with these people?” asked
Ludendorff.

“Yes, it is possible,” was the reply. “Your Excellency
needs troops and this is the easiest way to get them.”

The Armistice was signed on December 16, but even
before that date troop trains were streaming across from
East to West,^ where it was no longer a case of replacing

^ The Armistice agreement prohibited the transfer of German troops
to other parts excepting “such removals as had been commanded
before the time when the Armistice agreement was signed”. In view of

KREUZNACH AND SPA

123

tired divisions by fresh ones, but of really adding to the
number of combatants.

As a short-term pohcy the assistance given by the German
Supreme Command to Lenin had proved a complete success.
Kussia was out of the war, and it is clear beyond the need
of demonstration what this meant to the Central Powers.
For the Quadruple Albance was held together at this point
— the close of 1917 — solely by the hope of the victory of
German arms followed by a rapid peace. Bulgaria and
Turkey still remained tolerably loyal, but the Austro-
Hungarian Monarchy was showing grave signs of defection.
The pubhcation by the Bolsheviks of the secret Treaty of
London, signed in 1915 to bring Italy into the war, had
disclosed the fact that the Allied Powers were ai ming at
nothing less than the dismemberment of Austria-Hungary,
and this revelation had not unnaturally the most dis-
quieting efiect in Vienna. “Peace at the earhest moment
is necessary for our own salvation, and we cannot obtain
peace until the Germans get to Paris — and they cannot get
to Pans unless their Eastern Front is free,” wrote Count
Czernin in his diary in November; and again in a letter to a
friend at the same period, “To settle with Russia as speedily
as possible; then break through the determination of the
Entente to destroy us, and then make peace — even at a
loss — that is my plan and the hope for which I hve. . . .
Let but old Hindenburg make his entry into Paris and the
Entente must utter the decisive word that they are willing
to treat.”

“Old Hindenburg” at this moment was entertaining and
expressing the most uncompHmentary views towards Count
Czernin and his country in general. “Count Czernin did not
realize of what his country was capable, otherwise he
would never have talked to us in 1917 of the possibiHty of

the fact that orders had already been given to remove a very large pro-
portion of the army to the West, Hofimann ‘Vas able to concede” this
point without any great difioulty.

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

not going on any longer.” The contempt for the Habsburg
Monarchy which the Marshal had conceived, half a century
before, at Kbniggratz, had not been lessened by his contact
with its armies under his command, and in a moment of
exasperation at Kreuznach he was once heard to remark
that the next campaign which Germany undertook must be
against Austria!

However, despite his feelings of contempt for his alHes,
Hmdenburg could not disguise from himself the fact that
the views expressed by Czernin were fundamentally correct.
An early peace was in every way as desirable for Germany
as for Austria, and to achieve this, victory for the German
armies was an essential. But the U-boat campaign had passed
the peak of its success and was waning. It had failed to
bring England to her knees and the pressure of the Alhed
blockade was again strangling the German people. If
massed forces could be hurled against the Western Front
it might be possible to break through, to take Paris and
Calais, and to threaten England directly. But this pre-
supposed a cessation of hostilities in the East.

At the same time, the arrival in France of large, if un-
seasoned, American reinforcements made it imperative for
the Supreme Command to make their ofiensive as soon as
possible. If the negotiations with Eussia were successful, all
would be ready by the middle of March. Therefore, as the
Marshal wrote, “Could any notion be more obvious tha n
that of bringing aU our effective troops from the East to the
West and then taking the offensive?” And Ludendorff adds,
“It win be obvious with what interest we watched the peace
negotiations”.

The interest of the Supreme Command was not, however,
confined to watching. From the first moment of the Armis-
tice it was clear that, in the peace negotiations which were
to follow, Hindenburg and Ludendorff intended to have the
controlling influence. The salient point of their policy was
that not an inch of soil which had been won by German arms

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

126

should be surrendered and that those Baltic provinces
of Russia which still remained under the occupation of
Russian troops should at the earliest possible moment be
incorporated within the German Reich. They favoured in
fact a frank policy of annexation undeterred by the prin-
ciples of the Peace Resolution of July.

In opposition to their views were those of the aged Chan-
cellor Hertling, and of the more far-seeing Foreign Secretary,
Kiihlmann, who realized the very detrimental efiect abroad
which would be brought about by the conclusion of a peace
of annexation. Kiihlmann himself was already convinced
that a victory in the field was impossible for the Central
Powers, and that all that could be hoped for was a general
peace of negotiation and compromise. When the time for
that arrived, any agreement now arrived at with Russia
must necessarily be open to revision, and he therefore
sought to provide himself with sufficient territorial bar-
gaining material in the East to ensure against annexa-
tions on Germany’s Western frontier. He was strongly
opposed to Germany’s acquiring permanently any further
territory.

The concrete grounds upon which these conflicting
theories met were the problem of Poland and the ultimate
future of Courland and Lithuania. The mistaken poHcy of
the High Command which had resulted, with disastrous
effects, in the proclamation of the Polish kingdom in
November 1916, had only established the theoretical exist-
ence of that state. No attempt had been made either then
or subsequently to define its poHtical status, and the control
of the occupied area still reniained in the hands of the
Governors-General of Warsaw and Lubhn.

There were three possible solutions of the Polish problem.
The first, the so-called “Austrian solution”, provided for the
union of Congress Poland with Galicia, the whole to become
a partner in a Tripartite Habsburg Monarchy. This solution
was favoured by the Habsburgs and by the Austrian

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

Ministry but was strongly opposed by the Hungarian Prime
Minister, Count Tisza, who felt that the political structure
of the Monarchy should not be changed and that, if Poland
must be added to it at all — and of the desirabihty of this
he was not entirely convinced — it should form an Austrian
province. Hindenburg and Ludendorfi also objected to
this solution, both strategically and politically, on the
grounds that it would place a tax upon their alliance with
Austria, which in the long run could not be borne.

There was also a “German solution”, enthusiastically
sponsored by Erzberger, though without any support from
either the Chancellor or Ktihhnann. This proposal envisaged
the incorporation of both Poland and Gahcia in the German
Empire, Austria being compensated by Rumania. This plan
was strenuously opposed by the Vienna Government, who
wisely enough were unwilling to throw away the substance
for the shadow.

The Supreme Command had its own plans, plans which
took httle account of pohtical considerations, and which
were based exclusively upon mihtary and strategic neces-
sities. It was the desire of Hindenburg and Ludendorfi to
create a “protective belt”, which would give greater security
to East Prussia and lessen danger of an attack such as that
made by the Grand Duke Nicholas in 1914. It was proposed
to widen the narrow neck between Danzig and Thorn and to
add, east of the Vistula, a broad strip of territory which
would protect the Upper Silesian coal-fields. With the re-
mainder of the dismembered Pohsh state the High Command
were not concerned. It could become independent, provided
that it estabhshed favourable economic relation with Ger-
many, or it could be given to Austria.

Kuhlmann, with the strong support of the Chancellor,
opposed this solution of the General Stafi on the ground
that an addition of two miUion Slavs to the population of
the German Empire was in every way undesirable, and while
Ludendorfi agreed with this view, he countered it with the

KEEUZNACH AKD SPA

127

rds “tMs grave objection must give way before military
jessity”.

iVitb regard to Courland and Lithuania the demands of
; General Stafi were equally emphatic. It was their wish
create two Grand Duchies connected with the Empire
‘ough the person of the Emperor himself, and so far had
iy impressed their views upon the local government,
'ough the agency of the Commander-in-Chief in the East
i, in Courland, of the Baltic baronial aristocracy, that
ctions for constituent assemblies had already taken place
both provinces. The Diet of Mitau had actually requested
} Emperor to become Duke of Courland, and though the
ihuanians had proved less tractable, hopes were still
bertained of their eventual comphance.

To Kuhhnann, whose one idea was to keep the question
the future of the provinces open for review in the course
a general peace settlement, the madness of the policy of
id-blooded annexation was only too abundantly clear,
it his objections were of no avail. The High Command
nained obdurate.

“But why”, Kiihlmann once asked Hindenburg during
e of their not infrequently acrimonious discussions at
■euznach, “do you so particularly want these territories?”
“I need them for the manoeuvring of my left wing in the
xt war,” was the Marshal’s reply; and Ludendorfi ex-
lined that Courland and Lithuania would improve Ger-
iny’s food supply and bring her additional man-power
case she should, in a future war, have to rely once more
ion her own resources.

From the first news of the Armistice proposals on
evember 26, the Imperial Government and the Supreme
im m and had conferred together on the terms to be pre-
nted to the Russians, and their discussion had only served
emphasize the degree of disagreement which existed
tween them. As usual the Emperor was called upon to
bitrate, and he presided over a conference at Kreuznach

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

on December 18, on tbe eve of Kiihlmann’s departure for
Brest-Litovsk, at wldcli tbe final terms of tlie instructions
were to be fix ed.

At this meeting the Emperor, who had previously been
inchned to favour the “Austrian solution” for Poland,
veered round to the views of the General Staff and expressed
his agreement with their proposal of a “protective belt” on
the Prussian-Polish frontier. In addition both he and the
Chancellor endorsed the idea of establishing a personal
union of Courland and Lithuania, either with the Crown
of Prussia or with the German Empire, provided that the
Federal Princes agreed.

Kuhlmann again reiterated his dishke of this policy and
repeated his belief that the question of the future of the
two provinces should be left open. “I might withdraw my
opposition against hoisting the German flag in the eastern
border states, but I would energetically advise against ever
nailing it to the mast there,” he declared emphatically.

The Emperor vacillated; nothing definite was decided,
and Kuhlmann departed for Brest-Litovsk with a deter-
mination to do what he thought to be right. He did not
regard himself as bormd by the discussions at Kreuznach,
which had ended in indecision.

Arrived at the conference Kuhhnann found an unexpected
ally in Hoffmann, who had been appointed to the German
delegation to represent the views of the High Command,
but who was too much of a realist to approve the fantastic
annexationist schemes of Hindenburg and Ludendorff.
Within the first few days of the conference the Foreign
Secretary and the General drew more closely together in
the face of stern realities. During a New Year’s interval in
the peace discussions Kuhlmann returned to Berlin, bring-
ing Hoffmann with him, and arranged for the General a
private audience with the Emperor. So impressed was the
Emperor with Hoffmann, whom he had not seen since the
days of the quarrel with Falkenhayn, that the General

KEEUZISTACH AND SPA 129

was invited to luncheon and asked to give his views on the
Polish question.

Hoffmann was in a quandary. He did not share the views
of the High Command, and yet was diffident in placing
himself in opposition to them. He begged to be excused
from giving his personal opinion.

“When your Supreme War Lord wishes to hear your
views on any subject it is your duty to give them to him,
qmte irrespective of whether they coincide with those of
G.H.Q. or not,” rephed the Emperor.

At that Hoffmann began to talk. He gave the Emperor
the views of a man who for the past eighteen months had
been in constant touch with the situation and who had had
practical experience of its difficulties. He pointed out that,
notwithstanding the measures taken by Prussia during
many decades, she had not been able to manage her Polish
subjects and that consequently he coidd see no advantage
to the Empire from the addition of a further two million
Poles to its population. He was even more critical of Erz-
berger’s so-called “German solution”. He suggested that
the new Polish border-line should be drawn in such a way
as to bring to Germany the smallest possible number of
Pohsh subjects. Only a small additional strip of territory,
with not more than 100,000 Pohsh inhabitants, was
necessary, near Bendzin and Thorn, to prevent the enemy
artillery in any subsequent war from firing straight into
the Upper Silesian coal-fields, or on to the chief railway
station of Thorn.

Deeply impressed with the reasonableness of Hoffmann’s
argument, the Emperor, always swayed by what he had
last heard, agreed with him, and at once had a map prepared
in accordance with his proposals. This he produced next
morning (January 2, 1918) at a Crown Council at the Belle-
vue Palace, to which not only Hindenburg and Ludendorff,
but also Hoffmann had been summoned. The latter attended
with no little apprehension, for thoughhe had tried to get int o

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

touch with Ludendorfi he had been unsuccessful, and the
First Quartermaster-General was therefore still ignorant of
what had passed between his subordinate and the Emperor.

The Emperor opened the council by laying the map
before them.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “you will find on this map the
future frontier between Poland and Prussia, as I, in my
capacity of your Supreme War Lord, consider that it should
be drawn.” He then added, “I base my conclusion on the
judgment of an excellent and competent expert, namely,
that of General Hoffmann, who is here”.

For a moment there was silence, and then Ludendorff,
his voice hoarse with anger, aU self-control abandoned,
shouted at the Emperor that he had no right to ask the
opinion of a general over his (Ludendorff’s) head. In no
circumstances could the fine drawn by the Emperor be
considered as final. The Supreme Command would have to
consider the matter further.

“We must certainly think this matter over carefully,”
muttered Hindenburg, in approval.

For a moment the Emperor hesitated in indecision.
Should he assert himself and provoke a joint resignation?
The Council sat about him, disturbed and uncomfortable.
Finally he temporized.

“I will await your report”, he said, and brought the
painful scene to a close.

But the Supreme Command were not thus easily mollified.
They considered that their authority had been flouted and
their dignity aspersed. That the Supreme War Lord of
Germany shoTild have the right to consult one of his
generals without their knowledge and consent, they
vehemently denied, and they retired to Eireuznach in high
dudgeon.

On January 7 the Emperor received not their promised
report but a letter from Hindenburg iu which occurred the
following passage:

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

131

In the Pobsh Question Your Majesty has chosen to place greater
reliance upon the judgment of General Hoffmann than upon that
of General Ludendorfi and myself. General Hoffmann is my sub-
ordmate, and bears no responsibility -whatsoever in the Polish
Question. The events of January 2 have been the cause of pain to
General Ludendorff and myself, and have shown us that Your
Majesty disregards our opimon in a matter of vital importance for
the existence of the German Fatherland.

This letter, the origin of which lay undoubtedly with
Ludendorff, was a direct challenge to the authority of
Wilhelm II, both as Supreme War Lord and as King of
Prussia, and showed to how great a degree the Supreme
Command considered itself the deciding power within the
Empire. They regarded their responsibihty as covering
every question that could remotely affect “the existence of
the German Fatherland”. Supreme dictatorship could not
go further.

The Emperor dared not resist. In answer to Hindenburg’s
letter, the Imperial Chancellor hastened to inform the
Supreme Command that a misunderstanding had arisen
and that the Emperor had taken no definite decision in
regard to Poland.

But though he abandoned Hoffmann’s proposals the
Emperor stood between him and the wrath of Ludendorff,
who had demanded his dismissal as Chief of the Staff in the
East and his appointment to the command of a division.
By command of the Emperor, Hoffmann remained at his
post at Brest-Litovsk, but the breach with Ludendorff
was permanent. The symbol HLH was shattered. It had in
fact become merely a gigantic L.

After this victory of the Supreme Command the fi n a l
tenor of the peace terms of Brest-Litovsk were inevit-
able and assured. Kiihlmann returned to the Conference
determined that if he could not negotiate a sane peace he
would at least demonstrate to the world that, stripped to its
essentials, Bolshevism was but a new form of nationahsm.

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

For tFis purpose lie engaged with. Trotsky in a series of
what the exasperated Czernin, who saw the sands of his
country’s life running out in the glass, described as “spiritual
wrestlmg matches”. In the end Kuhlmann succeeded; for,
though Trotsky branded the Germans before the world as
freebooters and mihtary tyrants, the Soviet Foreign Com-
missar, when finally faced with a bare-faced annexationist
pohcy, abandoned the role of world revolutionary and
fought for his country with the tenacity of any patriot.
He employed every artifice of diplomacy, including an
attempt to make a separate peace with Austria, and in
final despair adopted the desperate expedient of “Neither
War — nor Peace”, broke ofi the negotiations, and returned
to Moscow.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff demanded a resumption of
hostihties. Kuhlmann protested. With the double purpose
of bringing about an immediate peace and of encompassing
the fall of the Foreign Minister, the Supreme Command
persisted in their demands. Kuhlmann was not to be in-
veigled into pohtical suicide. Though forced to submit, he
refused to resign. “I am against the proposal of resuming
hostilities,” he said, “but I do not consider the question
important enough for me to withdraw from the Cabinet.”
But he did not return to Brest-Litovsk.

War with Russia was resumed, and within a week the
armies of the Central Powers had occupied Kiev and
Odessa and had advanced to Lake Peipus, within 120 miles
of Petrograd. Livonia, Estonia, and the Ukraine passed
under German control. Then the Russians surrendered.
They returned to Brest-Litovsk and on March 3 signed a
treaty, which for a peace of humihation is without precedent
or equal in modern history.^ Three weeks later the Supreme

^ By tie Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Russia lost a territory (301,000
square miles) nearly as large as Austria-Hungary and Turkey combined;
fifty-six million inbabitants, or 32 per cent, of tbe whole population of
the country; a third of her railway mileages, 73 per cent, of her total iron

KREUZNACH AND SPA

133

Command launched its great ofiensive in the West and the
last furious gamble of the war had begun.

In nearly every respect the poHcy which the Supreme
Command had imposed on the negotiators of Brest-
Litovsk proved a failure, both psychologically and materi-
ally. The cold-blooded brutality of the peace terms silenced
for ever those well-meaning pacifists in the Alhed countries
who had talked of a peace of understanding based upon the
German Peace Resolution of July 1917. If it did nothing
else, the Peace of Brest-Litovsk, as Kuhlmann had feared
and foreseen, showed clearly to the world what mercy the
conquered enemies of Germany might expect. The effect in
the Allied countries was of a grim tightening of the belt and
an increased determination to destroy the regime which
could make such a peace. No better antidote could have
been provided in England to the early disasters which
followed the opening of the March offensive.

For Germany, too, the moral effect was detrimental. The
infiltration of Bolshevik propaganda, which had begun with
the fraternization of the troops at the time of the Armistice,
had increased with the return of prisoners of war from
Russia, who had proved not unfertile soil for such a seed.
It had made its first public appearance in Germany durmg
the great industrial strikes of January 1918. It was destined
to spread more quickly and much farther. For although
there was included in the treaty a provision that both the
Soviet and German Governments should “refrain from any
agitation or propaganda” against each other, there was
never any pretence of respecting this agreement on the part
of the Soviet Govermnent. Joffe, its first Ambassador in
Berhn, made no concealment of the fact. “The Soviet
Government as a body and its accredited representatives
in Berlin”, he announced, “have never concealed the fact

and 89 per cent of her total coal production; and over 5000 factories,
mills, distilleries, and refineries. By a supplementary agreement signed
in August she paid to Germany an indemnity of 6,000,000,000 marks.

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

tliat they are not going to observe this agreement and have
no intention of so doing in the future.” For his brief tenure
of of&ce, which terminated with his expulsion in October
1918, he made the Soviet Embassy, Unter den Linden, the
headquarters of Bolshevik and Spartacist activities, and
with considerable success prepared the way for the break-
down of November.

The weapon with which Ludendorfi had sought to deal
Russia so deadly a blow had indeed justified his expecta-
tions, but he had not foreseen that it would be used against
himseK with equally devastating effect.

Even the material advantages did not accrue to the
extent that had been hoped. The supplies of gram from the
Ukraine and of oil from Rumania, which were dehvered in
1918 as a result of treaty agreements, fell considerably below
the amounts which had been expected. And in the case of
the former, the major share went to Austria. The Ukrainian
delegates, with whom the Central Powers had signed a
separate peace, had exaggerated the stocks of wheat and
had ignored the effects of the agrarian revolution. The im-
posing central German-Ukrainian trading organization,
which Groner had conceived so excellently on paper, was
able to procure, in effect, very few supphes, and, in the
opinion of Hoffmann, the Supreme Command would have
been more successful if they had commissioned a number
of Jewish dealers to buy corn for them in the open market.

But the most complete illusion of all was that the con-
clusion of peace with Russia had enabled the Supreme
Command to transfer the very large majority of its forces
from East to W est. This was far from being the case. Aviator’s
peace must be enforced. The pohtical and economic con-
ditions which the Supreme Command had imposed on its
captured territories proved so irksome and unpopular that
only by the most ruthless apphcation of force could they
be maintained at all.

Moreover at this period Ludendorff ’s paranceic complaint

KKEUZNACH AND SPA

135

developed a Napoleonic complex. He saw himself creating
and distributing kingdoms as had the Emperor of the
French after Tilsit. He sent an expeditionary force into
Finland to put down a Bolshevik revolt. Another expedition
penetrated to Batoum and Baku. A mission was sent to
Odessa: an army of occupation was maintained in Eumania.
In the Ukraine a regime had been set up under a hereditary
Hetman, and grand-ducal governments were being organ-
ized in Lithuania, Courland, Livonia, and Estonia. In addi-
tion, the problem of Poland still required constant care and
supervision.

To enforce the peace and to bolster up the fantasies of
the Supreme Command, no less than a milhon soldiers had
to be retained in the East in 1918. Admittedly they were
older men, nearly all under thirty-five years of age having
been sent to the West. But in the French and British armies
there were a good many men over thirty-five years old, and
if even half this milhon had been available for service in
qidet sectors on the Western Front, other and younger
men would have been released to take part in the offensive.
Later in the autumn, when the German losses had reached
a gigantic figure, the Supreme Command did indeed make
transfer from the East to close the gaps. By October 1, 1918,
barely half a milhon men remained with Hoffmann, but
the transfers had only been made when Germany had been
forced finally upon the defensive. When they were really
needed — that is to say, in the first weeks of the ofiensive —
they were not there. An additional five hundred thousand
men in the West in April 1918 might very well have turned
the scale in favour of Germany.

Thus the pohcy, to which Hindenburg so unprotestingly
gave his assent and name, became the fatal lodestar of the
German Empire, and while Ludendorff the soldier was
demanding every man for the decisive battles in the West,
Ludendorff the politician was wasting an army a milhon
strong in the East.

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

Even granting that Hindenbnrg knew or realized little of
what was in progress, and that he obediently followed
LndendorfE’s lead, it is impossible to exonerate him, from
a very large share of responsibility for the Eastern pohcy
of the Supreme Command and the consequent tragedy
of Brest-Litovsk. The documents setting forth the case
of the Supreme Command all appear over his signature.
Throughout his hfe he had a sad weakness for signing
what was placed before him, and in the last days it
was not unusual for his immediate entourage not to trouble
even to consult him but to send telegrams in his name. But
these days had not arrived at that time. He was still capable
at the age of seventy of understanding what he was told
even if he did not always appreciate its real inwardness.
But so completely was he dominated by the personahty of
LudendorfE that he accepted unquestioningly the views of
his coadjutor.

8

By the beginning of 1918 the position of the High Com-
mand in Germany was unique and supreme. They not only
ruled but governed, and demanded a controlhng voice in
all internal and external afiairs. With the callousness of
mediaeval princes they jettisoned their nominees in office,
and submitted the Emperor to the treatment meted out by
the Carohngian mayors of the palace to the Merovingian
kings. In the relations with their military colleagues they
had learnt httle from their own early difficulties with
Ealkenhayn. Unpalatable reports were either ignored or
sharply criticized, and there grew up at General Head-
quarters that inevitable chque of “yes-men” which sur-
rounds and vitiates the atmosphere breathed by all
dictators.

The poHtical and mihtary situation of Germany at the
moment greatly strengthened the position of Hindenbnrg
and Ludendorff. It was admitted on aU sides that a speedy

THE UNVEILING OF THE WOODEN STATUE IN
THE SIEGESALLEE, BERLIN

KREUZNACH AND SPA

137

end to the war was imperatively necessary. To bring this
about there were two alternative methods: the favourable
military position of Germany could be used for concluding
a peace of concihation or for an attack in the West. The
peace policy was warmly favoured by Kiihlmann and Prince
Max of Baden, and had the secret support of German and
Bavarian Crown Princes. The question of Belgium again
arose, and it was urged on the Emperor that a clear and
unequivocal declaration should be made renouncing all
claims direct and indirect upon Belgian independence.

But the High Command would have none of it. Luden-
dorfi had become convinced, even before the armistice in
the East, that the sole hope of German victory lay in “a
gambler’s throw”, a blow in the West as swift and as
terrible as possible. “It will be an immense struggle”, he
wrote to the Emperor, “that wiU begin at one point, continue
at another, and take a long time; it is difficult, but it will
be successful.” He had reached this decision after a con-
sultation with his chief stafi ofS,cers on November 11, 1917,
at Mens. The date and place are of interest, as is the fact
that, at a conference where military decisions of the very
gravest importance for the Central Powers were to be taken,
neither the Supreme War Lord, Wilhelm II, nor the Chief
of the General Stafi, Hindenburg, were present.

The Emperor, almost certainly against his better judg-
ment, fin ally decided for the High Command. In so doing
he delivered himself into their hands and sealed the fate of
his Imperial house. Having committed himself to the thesis
that “Germany’s fate depended on one card”, he could no
longer rid himself of HL, who claimed to have that card up
their sleeve. Herein lies the secret of the period of unequalled
supremacy which Hindenburg and Ludendorfi enjoyed from
December 1917 tiU the October of the following year, a
period during which they made no small contribution to
the ultimate downfall of the House of HohenzoUern.

The Chancellor, Michaelis, having fallen foul of the

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

Social-Democrats in tke Reichstag, was replaced in Novem-
ber 1917 by the aged Bavarian statesman, Count Hertling,
who, feeling himself primarily the nominee of the Supreme
Command, did his best to translate their policy into action.
Though his ripe experience and high character rendered it
impossible for hi m to adopt the views of Ludendorff in toto,
his advanced age and lack of vigour made him feel unequal
to embarking on a controversy with the Supreme Command.

The earliest opportunity for Hindenburg and Ludendorfi
to test their increased strength was over the peace terms
of Brest-Litovsk, and in this case they were eminently suc-
cessful, riding rough-shod over Emperor, Chancellor, and
Foreign Secretary. But they had been deeply afiected by
the Emperor’s change of front under Hoffmann’s influence
at the Bellevue Conference on January 2, and although they
had received assurances that the Emperor had completely
withdrawn his opposition to their views on the Polish
question, they were persuaded that the time had come to
have the seal of imperial approval placed upon their
strongly held views regarding “responsibihty”.

A memorandum to the Emperor was drawn up which
stands unique in the history of war and politics. On the
Emperor was placed the full responsibility of the new
offensive then under preparation in the West, in which the
Supreme Command would make every effort to secure a
decisive victory, bringing with it the annihilation of the
enemy. But they could only do this on condition that they
enjoyed the fullest confidence of the Emperor, and had a
guarantee that a victorious and dictated peace should crown
the victory. It was for the Emperor to decide, but if he
dared to hold a different view he must find other generals.

We must defeat the Western Powers in order to assure the
position in the world which Germany needs [writes Hmdenburg to
his Emperor]. It is for this purpose that Your Majesty has given
orders for the battle in the West to be undertaken, a battle which
will constitute the greatest effort made by us during the war, and

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involving the heaviest sacrifices. After the events of Brest-Litovsk
I cannot but doubt that, when peace comes to be negotiated,
Germany will not obtain the concessions which her position demands
and to which our sacrifices entitle us. . . It is Your Majesty’s
privilege to decide. . . . The heavy task which Your Majesty is
placmg upon the men who will have to prepare and conduct the
operations in the West, in conformity with Your Majesty’s instruc-
tions, makes it necessary that they should feel certain of enjoymg
Your Majesty’s fullest confidence. Both the armies and their leaders
must be upheld by the feelmg that the pohtical success will corre-
spond to the military success. Most humbly I beg Your Majesty to
decide on this fundamental principle. Personal consideration for
General Ludendorii and myself cannot be allowed to count in
matters where the safety of the State is concerned.

{Signed) von Hindenbxjeg, G.F M.

It was the old policy of a pistol to the head, only in a _
more barefaced manner. “The Field-Marshal and I will
resign” had been Ludendorfi’s chnching and final argument
from the earhest days, and it had now become an almost
unassailable one. What was demanded was not a share
in, but a control of, foreign pohcy in its widest sense. The
proposal was as preposterous as it was impudent, and both
the Emperor and the Chancellor were very naturally furious
and alarmed.

In an interview with Herthng, Hindenburg and Luden-
dorfi were given clearly to understand that, while the
Supreme Command had the right to assist in peace negotia-
tions in a consultative capacity in so far as military matters
were concerned, the sole and final responsibility for the con-
clusion of peace must rest with the Chancellor, the Emperor
being the final court of appeal. This view received the
official approval of Wilhelm II in a letter replying to Hinden-
burg’s memorandum. After thanking him for his “soldierly
frankness and outspokenness”, and while admitting the
right of the Supreme Command “to give unrestrained ex-
pression to their views”, the Emperor went on to say: “The
final decision must rest with me. I have passed on your

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memorandum to the Chancellor and am in agreement with
his views. I expect henceforward that you and General
Ludendorif will be able to give up further objections and to
devote yourselves whole-heartedly to your proper function
of conducting the war."

This was a brave reply and gave the impression that the
Emperor was about to reassert his position. But m effect
the Supreme Command were little concerned by it. They
reahzed that behind this bluster neither Wilhelm II nor
Herthng had the courage to denounce a dictated peace.
They knew that they had already estabhshed a sufficiently
strong control over the Foreign Office through their repre-
sentative, Colonel von Haeften, to ensure their views re-
maining paramount, and they were confident that, though
the Emperor might summon up enough valour to reprove
them, he did not dare to take up their challenge and accept
their resignations.

To prove their domination, they launched a new attack
in a direction very singularly offensive to the Emperor,
since it was against one of his personal entourage and chal-
lenged his undoubted right to appoint his own staff. On
January 16 Hindenburg wrote to the Emperor demanding
the dismissal of the Chief of his Civil Cabinet, Herr von
Valentini, a man who had for years enjoyed his closest
friendship, and who deeply resented the encroachment of
the Supreme Command upon the imperial prerogative. The
reasons for the requested dismissal were that Valentini
had had a large share in the responsibility for “the danger-
ous pohcy of Bethmann HoUweg”, of which the failure to
make sufficient pohtical exploitation of mili tary successes
had remained as a legacy. In a supreme moment of hypo-
crisy Hindenburg urged the Emperor to replace Valentini
by a man who “viewed the situation clearly and impartially,
and who would openly and manfuUy inform your Majesty
as to the state of affairs”. It was exactly these q ua lities
which Valentini possessed and for which he was to be sacri-

KREUZNACH AND SPA

Ml

ficed; it was, moreover, a man of these qualities that
was so sadly lacking in the Marshal’s own environ-
ment.

The Emperor obeyed. He dared not, in the final analysis,
refuse. Gone were the brave days when with a light-hearted
assurance he had dismissed Bismarck. Gone even was the
spark of courage which had enabled him to dispense with
Ealkenhayn. Now at the demand of the Chief of the General
Stafi he dismissed a faithful servant whose chief fault was
his loyalty. In these days monarchical government could
scarcely be said to exist in Germany and it was almost im-
possible to recognize the Emperor as a force. His passion
for marginalia discloses the disgruntled reahzation of his
new position.

When Kiihlmann in the Bbrsen-Zeitung laimched a
guarded and anonymous attack on the Supreme Command,
the Emperor peppered it with exclamations of approval,
whose tenor showed how clearly he appreciated that his posi-
tion had suffered both with the Eeichstag and with the
General Staff. “Again and again”, wrote Kuhimann, “there
comes a cry from the German people for a statesman to lead
them. Conditions however are not such as to allow any
statesman to become great”. “Very true”, was the imperial
marginal comment; “either he is unpoprdar with the Reich-
stag or Kreuznach or both”. The article continued that “in
the conduct of foreign affairs the Foreign Office is no longer
paramount — a preposterous state of affairs”. Against this
Wilhelm II wrote: “Naturally; the Kaiser is ignored by both
sides”.

Complaints arose also from the German commanders on
other fronts that their views were ignored. Marshal von
Mackensen in desperation sent a report to the Emperor
direct, expounding his views on the situation in the Balkans
and in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The report is en-
dorsed in the imperial script: “Mackensen’s views wholly
coincide with my own. Up to the present, however, I have

L

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been unable to obtain a bearing for tbem from tbe Chief of
the General Stafi”.

In the internal government of the country and in the
regulation of relations between capital and labour the
Supreme Command also endeavoured to make its influence
supreme. Through the Home Commands, whose control
Ludendorfi removed from the Minister of War and placed
under himself, and by means of martial law and a formidable
array of military regulations, there was created an executive
authority entirely independent of the Imperial Government.

The High Command allied itself with the industrialists
and landowners, and supported their war aims. It was par-
ticularly severe in its relations with organized labour.
Strikes in time of war were high treason, and strikers there-
fore were treated with considerable severity. They were
tried by court-martial to avoid the risk of mild sentences,
and for this purpose suitable officers were appointed as
Judge-Advocates-General and Crown Prosecutors. The
great strike of January 1918, which involved more than
half a million workers, chiefly in Berlin, was dealt with in
a most ruthless and efficient manner. A state of siege was
proclaimed, the labour press forbidden, and aU strike meet-
ings broken up by the police. One leader was arrested and
received a sentence of five years’ detention in a fortress.
Thousands of workmen on the Army Eeserve were called
to their regiments, and finally seven of the great industrial
concerns were placed under military control and the men
ordered to resume work on pain of punishment in accord-
ance with the utmost rigour of martial law.

The strike coUapsed, but the effect in the country was so
serious that, in a letter to the Minister for War on February
18, Ludendorfi recommended that in future industrial
disputes should be settled “in general without the employ-
ment of force”. “Nevertheless”, he added, “it is necessary
to be prepared for aU eventualities, and it is for this reason
that I have consented to leave the desired troops in Ger-

KEBUZNACH AND SPA

143

many.” In reality he was so much disturbed that he sent a
secret order to each army commander instructing him to keep
two battalions ready for use against the civilian population.

To these disastrous policies at home and abroad Hinden-
burg was lending his name and accepting im plicitly a
considerable share of responsibility. He became disturbed
at the increasing number of disputes in which the Supreme
Command was becoming involved. Again and again he
acted as peace-maker between LudendorS and the Emperor,
Ludendorff and the Chancellor, Ludendorfi and the party
leaders, but when the final choice came he had no will of
his own. The “happy marriage” with Ludendorff had
developed into a harmonious married fife in which, in the
words of the Marshal, the relationships of the individuals
“are one in thought and action, and often what one says is
only the expression of the wishes and feelings of the other”.

9

The principle of launching a great attack in the West
having been accepted in November 1917, preparations
went steadily forward throughout the winter and early
spring. As the weeks drew on towards the day when all
must be ready, it was found necessary for the Supreme
Command to be in closer touch with the headquarters of
the Army Glroups and armies which were to play the
principal parts m the forthcoming battle, and the Great
General Headquarters of the German Army were accordingly
moved from Elreuznach to the little Belgian watering-place
of Spa, where Hindenburg and LudendorfE took up their
quarters in the Hotel Britannique in the early days of
March. Advanced headquarters were estabhshed at Avesnes,
just across the French frontier. The Emperor did not take
up residence either at Spa or at Avesnes, but Kved in his
special train during the eventful weeks which followed. The
train was moved about according to the mili tary situation.

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

During one of tlie periodic visits of the High Command
to the front from Avesnes the Cerman Army was nearly
robbed of its controlhng brains. A faulty switch-box caused
a heavy munition train to collide broadside on with the
train of the Supreme Command, derailing it and smashing
several of the cars to splinters. Apart from the fact that
Hindenburg and his alter ego were unceremoniously
tumbled out of bed, no harm was done. There were no
casualties; not even the maps were damaged.

As at Pless and at Kreuznach, numerous important
visitors arrived at Spa to pay their respects to the two
legendary figures who were now regarded as the sole props
of the Quadruple Alhance. Amongst these was the Crown
Prince Vaheddin of Turkey, and in his suite was a young
major-general, recently transferred from the Syrian Front,
who, in company with many of the younger Turkish
generation, nursed a bitter resentment against Germany
for her dealings with his country.

To the Crown Prince the Marshal gave a most optimistic
review of the mihtary situation of the Central Powers,
including that in Syria, and in a hasty aside to the Prince
the Turkish officer assiued him that the details given of the
Syrian Front were completely incorrect and that he strongly
suspected the rest of being largely blufi.

Later Ludendorff arrived and gave them a more detailed
account, especially of the preparations for the great
offe nsi ve. The Crown Prince, who was quite ignorant of
everything mili tary, nodded somnolently, but the Turkish
general wanted to know more.

“What is the line you expect to reach if the ofiensive is
successful?” he asked.

The Marshal, nettled at being cross-exa m i n ed by so
young an officer, repHed in general terms:

“We usually aim at a point that is decisive to us. Any
further action depends on circumstances.”

“There!” cried the general to Prince Vaheddin, “even the

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

146

Chief of the German Staff doesn’t know his objective and
trusts to luck to get him through.”

That evening there was a banquet given by the Emperor
in honour of his guests. Under the influence of the imperial
champagne, the Turkish general again approached Hinden-
burg.

“Your Excellency”, he said, “the facts you supphed this
morning to Prince Vaheddin about the Syrian Front were
quite wrong. I know, for I was there, and the cavalry
division of which you spoke exists only on paper. However,
let that pass. Would you, as a favour, tell me in confidence
what is the objective of this new ofifensive?”

The Marshal looked down from his great height upon this
presumptuous young man, and, completely ignoring his
questions, gave him a cigarette to keep him quiet.

In days to come, which none could then foresee, both
were destined to become presidents in their own countries,
for the cock-sure young Turk was Mustapha Kemal Pasha.

In fact, the plans for the offensive were, of course,
considerably more definite in form than the Supreme
Command had seen fit to tell the Turks! The general aim
was by a series of terrific blows to shatter the enemy’s
continuous entrenched position, to make it impossible for
them through lack of reserves to hold together in open
warfare, and to defeat their separate armies. If it proved
impossible to reduce them to complete impotence, at least
the war-will — and more particularly the VernicUungswille
(“desire for annihilation”) — of their peoples must be so
broken as to make it impossible for them to await the
long and uncertain process of reconstructing their shattered
fortunes with American aid.

Such was the general conception. To bring it to fruition
there was a variety of alternatives, the merits of which
were canvassed and sifted. On January 21, however,
Ludendorff, again in the absence of Hindenburg, came to a
final decision. The blow should fall with its full weight upon

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KEEUZNACH AKD SPA

the British army, on a seventy-mile front from Vimy
Ridge to Barisis-sur-Oise. This course was chosen partly
because Great Britain was regarded as the mainspring of
the Entente; partly because the Supreme Command con-
sidered the British less sMlful tactically than the French —
"The Enghshman did not understand how to control rapid
changes in the situation. His methods were too rigid”, was
Hindenburg’s opinion — and partly because it was rightly
calculated that the French would not “run themselves ofi
their legs and hurry at once to the help of their Entente
comrades”. The tactical break-through was not in itself an
objective; its raison d’etre was to gain an opportunity for
applying that strongest form of attack, envelopment; to
drive a wedge between the British and French armies and
defeat them severally.

The execution of the ofiensive was entrusted to the Army
Groups of the German and Bavarian Crown Princes, who
assembled between them forty-three divisions to be
launched against the fourteen divisions of the British Fifth
Army. This gave the Germans odds in their favour of over
three to one, and this overwhelming superiority in numbers
discounted the fact that the place, date, and even the time
of assault were eventually known to the British, in spite of
the elaborate German precautions to preserve secrecy.

On March 18 Hindenburg and LudendorfE moved up to
Avesnes. At that time the exact date for the opening of the
ofiensive had not been fixed, but it was felt that if any
element of surprise was to be preserved it must be launched
as soon as possible. The weather was stormy and rainy
almost the whole of March 20. The prospects for the morrow
were uncertain, but at noon it was definitely decided that
the battle should begin on the morning of the following day.
The orders had been drawn up on March 10 over the
Emperor’s signature with the day and hour of attack left
blank; now they were brought to Hindenburg and he
countersigned them.

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

147

The early morning hours of March 21 found the whole
of Northern France, from the coast to the Aisne, shrouded
in mist. At 4.40 a terrific bombardment from seven thousand
guns opened with a crash on the forty-mile front of the
British Fifth Army. The higher the sun mounted into the
sky the thicker the fog became. At times it limited the range
of vision to a few yards. Even the sound-waves seemed to be
absorbed in the grey veil. Back in Avesnes, Hindenburg and
Ludendorff could only hear a distant, indefinite roU of
thunder coming from the front. At a httle after 9 o’clock
the creeping barrage began, and at the same time the grey
waves of German infantry began to advance through the
fog. The greatest struggle in history had opened. The
“Kaiser’s Battle” was on.

At first only vague reports reached Avesnes; recitals of
objectives reached, contradictions of previous reports,
rumours and alarms. Ordy gradually, as the mist began to
dissolve and the sun to triumph, was it reahzed that the
British Line had been broken through at all points. By the
evening it was clear that the right and centre of the German
advance was held up before the British second line, but
the left had swept forward far beyond St. Quentin. The
delay, however, was disposed of on the following day, and
the attack pushed farther and farther westwards. Hundreds
of guns and enormous quantities of ammunition and other
booty fell into German hands and long columns of British
prisoners were marched towards the rear. P4ronne was
captured on the 23rd, and on that same day the first long-
range shells fell upon Paris. An advance now seemed pos-
sible on Amiens, that nodal point of the most important
railway connection between the war zones of Central and
Northern France. If it fell into German hands the Allied
field of operations would be divided and the tactical
break-through would indeed have been converted into
a strategical wedge between the French and British
armies, which might even develop into a pohtical cleav-

148 KEEUZNACH AND SPA

age between the two countries. Forward, then, against
Amiens!

The evening of March 24 saw the fall of Bapaume and the
old Somme battlefield was behind the German lines; wide
sections of the Bnghsh Front had been utterly routed. What
remained of the Fifth Ajmy had been placed under the
command of the French General FayoUe and was retiring
on Amiens. On the 26th the French considered the position
of the British so critical that at the Conference of DouUens,
when Haig entered the room, Petain whispered to Clemen-
ceau, “There is a man who will be forced to see his army
capitulate in the open field”.

But the force of the German attack was slackening; the
pace was too fast and the calibre of the men was not equal
to the strain. The success of a break-through is not only a
question of tactics and strategy, it is essentially one of re-
inforcement and supply. The German losses had been very
heavy, the price of the advance was ghastly; for the first
time in the war they had two soldiers killed for every
British, and three officers killed for every two British. Their
consumption of material exceeded their captures, and the
quality of the food and equipment served out to the men,
much of it Ersatz in character, began to tell unfavourably.

Here was the nemesis of that fatal earher pohcy which had
been the lodestar of the Supreme Command since 1916. A
million troops immobilized was the price of aggrandisement
in the East, and half that number would have turned the
scale in the West during the last week of March. According
to both Sir Douglas Haig and General Mangin, only a few
cavalry divisions were necessary to widen the gap between
the French and the British, thus severing the two armies.
These were not available on the Western Front, but at that
moment three cavalry divisions were occupied in the
Ukraine propping up the impopular and imsavoury govern-
ment of the Hetman, Skoropadsky. As it was, the drive for
Amip.ns fell short by ten miles and flickered out in heavy

Tmpenul Wnr Museum Phomraph Copyrigm m
HINDENBUBG WALKING WITH THE KAISER AND LUDENDORFF AT SPA, APRIL 1918

KREUZNACH AND SPA

149

fighting around Villers-Bretonneux, Hangard, and Moreuil.
By April 4 the “Greatest Battle of the War” was over; its
most far-reaching effect had been the appointment of Poch
as Allied Comm ander-in-Chief .

But this was by no means the impression made in Ger-
many, where the advance of the army and the enormous
captures of men and material were hailed with enthusiasm.
Por the last time a wave of optimism swept the country,
and with it came a great re-awakening of the Hindenburg
Legend. Both were anxiously and immediately exploited.
The battle was christened “die KaiserschlacM” , and the
Emperor conferred upon the Marshal the highest military
order of Prussia, the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross with
Golden Bays, which had been created for Blucher after
Waterloo and which even the great Moltke had not received.
The fact that this honour, usually regarded as the crowning
award at the close of a victorious campaign, should be given
to Hindenburg at a moment when the final issue of the
battle was stfil in serious doubt, cannot have escaped him,
for at this moment he writes to his wife: “What is the use
of all these orders? A good and advantageous peace is what
I should prefer. It is not my fault m any case if the struggle
ends unfavourably for us.” This is not the tone of a com-
mander assured of victory.

To exploit the successes against the British in the south
and to take advantage of the weakening of the enemy line
through the transfer of reserves, the Supreme Command
planned a new stroke in the north across the valley of the
Lys from Armentieres to La Bass4e, the ultimate object
being the capture of Calais and Boulogne. Beginning on
April 9, the anniversary of NiveUe’s fatal attack, it too
met with initial success. The great natural bastion of
Kemmel Hill was captured from the British; the Portuguese
divisions ceased to exist as a fighting force; Armentieres,
Bailleul, and Wytschaete fell into German hands and they
stormed again the battered ruins of Messines. The British

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were in great jeopardy, and the gravity of the situation
was reflected in Haig’s now historic order of the day:
“With our backs to the wall”.

But again at the critical moment the last ounce of weight
was missing from the German onslaught. Discipline was
slackening and considerable time was lost while the troops
pillaged the captured British stores for the luxuries which
the Allied blockade had so long denied them. The heavy
losses were beginning to tell more and more, and there were
no fresh divisions to throw into the line. On the other hand,
new British divisions were arriving from Italy and Palestine,
and American troops were now entering Prance at the rate
of 125,000 a month.

The second great attack had failed in its final objective.
The AUied line sagged and bulged but it remained imbroken.
Neither Amiens nor Calais had been reached and the tide
was beginning to turn. Once again Hindenburg and Luden-
dorfi gathered their strength for a further efiort. But their
strength was not what it had been. Only forty-one divisions
were available for this third great attack dehvered against
the French on May 27 along the heights of the Chemin des
Dames, with Paris as the objective.

The attack, however, was a complete surprise. The French
had considered the position impregnable and had regarded
the absence of a previous German attack on this section as
a recognition of the fact on their part. Hindenburg himself
was inchned to beheve the story told to him by an officer
who had taken part in the preparations on the Ailette, that
the croaking of the frogs in the streams and marshes had
been so loud that it was impossible for the French to hear
the sounds made by the approach of the German bridging
trains! Whatever the cause, the French were taken off their
guard and were rapidly thrown back across the Aisne and
as far as the Marne. Again the Allied front was dented
perilously and again the German assault proved just too
weak to break it. Mangin’s counter-attack and the

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161

Americans’ baptism of blood at Cbateau-Thierry brought
tbe third German attack to a standstill before the gates of
Paris. The action closed on June 8 and both sides paused
for a breathing-space.

The outcome of the offensive had been entirely contrary
to the hopes, expectations, and promises of the High Com-
mand. In spite of every effort they had not been able to
inflict a mortal wound upon their adversaries in either a
mili tary or a pohtical sense. There was no sign of surrender
on the part of the Entente. On the contrary, each military
reverse seemed only to increase their determination to carry
on the struggle to the bitter end.

Such was not the case within the Quadruple AUiance.
Separatism in Hungary, disruption and revolt m Austria,
reared their heads and hissed at the Dual Monarchy. In
Germany the fruits of Brest-Litovsk were ripening and the
corrosive doctrines of Bolshevism were making rapid in-
roads upon the morale of the Home Front. Divisions trans-
ferred from the East brought the infection with them, as
did exchanged prisoners of war, and the army in the West
began to feel its influence.

The fact that, despite the very large gains in territory,
the German offensives of March, April, and May had failed
in their fundamental object of breaking the Allied line, was
not generally appreciated in the country, where the tactical
successes of the army were still the cause for great rejoicings.
Amongst the leading men of Germany there were, however,
those who had entirely lost hope of victory and were anxious
only to make peace while the power of taking the offensive
stOl remained with the army. The Crown Prince of Bavaria,
Prince Max of Baden, and Kiihlmann, who had held this
view longer than any of them, all urged upon the Chancellor
the necessity of a peace offensive.

The Supreme Command remained silent as to the reality
which lay hidden behind their apparent victory, but their
views leaked through to the Imperial Government by

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

indirect channels. “Greneral Ludendorfi”, wrote Prince
Eupprecht to Hertling on June 1 (a full week before the
end of the battle of Soissons), “shares my view that in all
probability a crushing defeat of the enemy is out of the
question; he is now resting his hopes upon the success of a
deus ex machind in the shape of an internal collapse in the
Western Powers.”

Prince Max had conveyed the same warning to the
Supreme Command themselves. Dining at Avesnes on May
19 and sitting between the Marshal and Ludendorfi, he
begged them to promise him one thing, that they would
warn the Govermnent before the last ofiensive strength
had been thrown in, for then it would be high time to make
peace. Everything, he assured them, depended on whether
Germany went to the conference table with an army still
capable of striking, so that a further appeal to arms could
be made if impossible terms were put forward. At the
moment both agreed with him, but the Prince feared that
his plea would soon be forgotten.

The diffi culties of the situation were not lessened by the
fact that at this critical moment the Supreme Command
and the head of the Foreign Office had become bitter
enemies. The breach which had opened at the Bellevue
Palace on January 2 had never been bridged. An attempt
at reconcihation had been made by Colonel von Haeften,
the representative of the Supreme Command at the Foreign
Office, but it had failed, both sides displaying an almost
child-like obstinacy.

Haeften, however, shared the views of Kuhhnann and
Prince Max of Baden as to the gravity of the situation, and
in June he made a further efiort. In a memorandum, with
which he arrived at Avesnes, he declared: “Unless our
statesmanship gets to work on a definite plan before the
conclusion of the military operations, there is no prospect
of a peace of statesmanship; and only a peace of statesman-
ship corresponds with our interests”.

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163

By this time the High Command had themselves realized
the necessity of at least exploiting politically the intervals
between battles. They gave approval to Haeften’s proposals
for a peace offensive. Ludendorff actually agreed that
victories alone could not bring peace. “It is high time”, he
said to Haeften, “that something was done”, and he sent
the memorandum to the Chancellor with a covering letter.
Haeften returned to Berlin almost jubilant and reported
his conversation to Herthng and Kiihlmann, adding that
he beheved that the Supreme Command would now agree
even to a declaration on the restoration of Belgian inde-
pendence. Kuhlmann commissioned him to prepare and
carry out the political offensive.

The Foreign Secretary himself beheved that he was
on the threshold of estabhshing confidential conversations
with the Alhes, and this behef was strengthened by the
reports he had received from England via the Hague and
by the famous letter of Lord Lansdowne, and the speeches
of Mr. Asquith and General Smuts. Armed with the news
which Haeften had brought him from Avesnes that the
Supreme Command themselves no longer beheved in victory
by force of arms alone, he seized upon the occasion of a
debate on foreign affairs in the Eeichstag on June 24 to
make a reply to these tentative feelers from abroad.

The speech contained nothing that was not obvious and
nothing that was not completely substantiated by the
events of the months which followed. But Kiihhnann was
speaking in what appeared superficially to be a breathing-
space between two great German victories. He emphasized
that in order to acMeve peace an understanding must be
sought between Germany and the Entente. “Without some
such exchange of ideas, in view of the enormous magnitude
of this coahtion war and of the number of Powers involved
in it, including those from overseas, an absolute end can
hardly be expected through purely military decisions alone,
without any diplomatic negotiations.” The remainder of the

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speech was an appeal to the Majority parties in the Reich-
stag to take their stand on the Peace Resolution of a year
before and to take the initiative once more.

But the Reichstag rose against him almost to a man.
Count Westarp declared for the Conservatives: “Just
as our good sword has brought us peace in the East, so too
will our sword bring us peace in the West”. Stresemann
and Posadowsky followed with bitter criticisms, and the
Socialist leaders, Scheidemann and Ledebour, dehvered
themselves, in the words of Prince Rupprecht, of “nasty
speeches which undoubtedly make negotiations far more
difficult”.

But from Avesnes there came a bellow of rage. It was
impossible to deny the truth of what Kuhlmann had said,
but he had blurted out pubhcly what should only have been
whispered suh rosa. In the Headquarters mess the word
“traitor” was used quite openly, and immediately steps
were taken to procure Kuhlmann’s dismissal. By tele-
phone Ludendorff, in language scarcely coherent, cancelled
Haeften’s projected pohtical offensive, while Hinden-
burg in a telegram to the Chancellor expressed “extreme
indignation” at Kiihhnann’s speech, which would have
a “profoundly depressing effect” upon the morale of
the army and people alike. The Supreme Command, he
added, “could no longer work with the Foreign Secretary”.
An imperious summons was issued to Count Herthng to
report at Spa on July 1.

On that occasion the Imperial Government was arraigned
before the Supreme Command. The Chancellor sought to
defend his colleague “hke a teacher trying to excuse a bad
essay by one of his pupils to a school inspector”. Kuhhnann
was overwrought, Hertling pleaded; he was exhausted, had
no time to prepare his speech adequately, had not even had
time for lunch. Hindenburg rephed that a Foreign Minister
must find time to prepare a speech of such importance, and
added: “The Supreme Command has never tried to disguise

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156

their suspicions of the Foreign Secretary”. They could no
longer work with him.

The Emperor arrived next day. The Chancellor and the
Marshal both appealed to him. Again Wilhelm II was faced
with this grim dilemma. The Imperial Government or the
High Command? The Constitution or the Condominium?
Again under the threat of resignation he surrendered. He
did more, he surrendered abjectly. At the Crown Councils
of July 2 and 3, all thoughts of a peace offensive were
abandoned. The Emperor and the Chancellor subscribed
to the foreign policy of the High Command. The Austro-
Polish solution was finally dropped, and Poland was re-
quired to surrender her frontier and to pay a contribution
to the expenses of the war. Belgixim, it was agreed, “must
remain under German influence to prevent a hostile invasion
from ever advancing through it again”. It was to be divided
into two separate states, Flanders and Wallonia, and
Germany required a long military occupation, the Flanders
coast and Liege being the last points to be evacuated. The
Admiralty representatives even put in a claim for a neutral
zone on the east coast of North America, but the Emperor
stopped short of this colossal folly and declined to include
it in the peace terms.

The Emperor returned to Berlin and on July 8 dismissed
KuhImann. In so doing he deprived Germany of the ser-
vices of her most far-sighted war statesman, with the excep-
tion of Bethmann HoUweg, and destroyed the last hope of
securing a peace of understanding. By July 12 the Emperor
was back in Spa, full of confidence and ready to witness the
overwhelming success of his armies which should bring him
a peace of victory.

The “Kaiser’s Battle” was indeed entering on its last
phase, but 'not in the sense that the Emperor and the High
Command had hoped. The battle of Rheims, which opened
on July 15, was, in the words of a neutral eye-witness,
“brilliant but hopeless”, for, whereas on the Marne the

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G-erman divisions crossed and drove forward half-way to
Epernay before they were held by a force of French,
American, and Itahan troops, east of the city of Rheims
they met with frightful defeat and were stopped dead,
losing as many as 30,000 killed. Two days after it had been
launched, the offensive had withered away. Orders were
issued to withdraw behind the Marne. On the following day,
July 18, came the first Alhed counter-offensive and the
initiative passed finally out of German hands.

It was the beginning of the end. With two miUion fresh,
young American troops in France, Foch put forth his new
strength, and it was only with great difficulty and by much
hard and costly fighting that the Germans were able to
bring the Allies to a standstill on the hue of the Vesle on
August 2.

Even then, Hindenburg and Ludendorff had not
emerged from the Valley of Delusion. Duriug the period
of comparative qixiet which followed August 2, the new
Foreign Minister, Admiral von Hintze, arrived at Avesnes
and put the question as to whether the Supreme Command
were still certain of finally and decisively beating the
enemy. To this Ludendorff rephed with “a decided yes”,
and the Admiral returned to Berlin reassured, and hopeful
that it might be his “pleasant and promising part to crown
an assured victory with a victorious peace”.

A few days later came Colonel Niemann, the representa-
tive of the Supreme Command with the Emperor, with a
further enquiry: “Can I assure His Majesty that Your Ex-
cellency win shorten the fine?” he asked Ludendorff. “It
appears to me that the positions in which our counter-
attacks have left us are awkward for defence and require
too many troops”. “Defence?” cried Ludendorff. “I hope
that in a few days, as soon as the men have pulled them-
selves together, om attack on Ami ens will be in full swing
again!”; and he actually began to plan four minor offensives.
Only the Athenians before Syracuse or the French before

KREUZNACH AND SPA

157

Moscow showed such a lack of appreciation of the real
roihtary situation as the G-erman High Command evinced
in the summer of 1918.

But there came a day on August 8 when even Ludendorfi
was disillusioned. On that “black day of the German
Army” the first of the Allied hammer blows was delivered
by the British east of Amiens. A considerable defeat was
suffered by the German divisions and the order to counter-
attack could no longer be carried out. For the first time
whole divisions failed and in many cases allowed themselves
to be captured without resistance. From then until Nov-
ember the German armies, fighting bravely and stubbornly,
were engaged in a retreat for which little or no preparation
had been made.

The events of August 8 were not merely a military defeat
of grave importance. They were tantamount to a vote of
no-confidence passed by the German army on the Supreme
Command. Ludendorfi realized this to the full, and there is
little doubt that from this realization dates the mental de-
terioration which showed itself so clearly in the weeks which
followed. “There is no more hope for the ofiensive”, he
said gloomily to von Haeften on August 12. “The generals
have lost their foothold”. One of his periodic crises de nerfs
seized upon the First Quartermaster-General. He proposed
his resignation to the Emperor, who reassured him as to his
personal feehngs towards him, and gave him “quite special
proofs of his confidence”. Ludendorfi urged the Field-
Marshal to replace him if he thought it advisable, but
Hindenburg refused.

For the prevalent epidemic of disillusionment had failed
to touch the Marshal. Though in 1919 he wrote in his
memoirs that he had “no illusion about the pohtical efiects
of our defeat of August 8”, and was wont to reiterate in the
days of his Presidency that as far back as February 1918 he
had known that the war was lost, these reflections in retro-
spect may be classed with the oft-repeated assertion of

M

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KEEUZNACH AM) SPA

George IV that he had led a charge at the battle of Waterloo.
No one took them very seriously, but “they had often
heard His Excellency say so”.

The truth is that at this time the Marshal really knew
very httle of what was going on about him. Separated by
an army of ofi&cials from a nation which regarded him with
almost superstitious adoration, he hved in an entirely false
atmosphere of optimism, and Ludendorfi saw to it that only
those had access to him who represented the nation’s “will
to victory”, a will which was slowly growing weaker. Even
his position at Spa had become anomalous. He had few or
no mihtary functions, and when one of his former general
staff ofidcers. General von Kuhl, was asked as to what part
he played, he was hard put to it to reply. After considerable
reflection he asserted that the Marshal “helped to see that
General Headquarters did not get slack in their work”. He
was not kept closely informed on the current mihtary situa-
tion. The reports of the divisional commanders were always
received by Ludendorff alone; and Colonel Bauer, the chief
of the Operations Section, admitted that “towards the end
we did not tell him even where the army corps were
stationed”. Consequently he retained his illusion much
longer than Ludendorff, with the result that at the Crown
Council which met at Spa on August 14 to consider the
situation he adopted a more optimistic tone than his
colleague.

Ludendorff had previously informed Hintze in confidence
that he had no longer any hope of breaking the resolution
of the enemy by means of an offensive, and that his only
hope now lay in a strategic defence which would eventually
succeed in wearing out the AlHes. But at the Council, in the
presence of the Emperor, the Crown Prince, and the Chan-
cellor, he confined himself to criticism of the Home Front
and did not mention the mihtary situation. It was left to
Hintze, who had been rudely awakened by his conversation
of the day before, to survey the position and to repeat to

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

159

the Council what Ludendorfi had told him, namely, that the
enemy could no longer be beaten by military operations.
Hindenburg, however, took a considerably more optimistic
view. “It will be possible”, he assured the Emperor, “to
maintain our troops on French territory, and thereby in
the end enforce our will upon the enemy”.

The impression conveyed was both disastrous and erro-
neous. To those at the Council it appeared that, whereas
Ludendorfi no longer beheved in a victorious conclusion of
the war, the Marshal still had hopes that, with Grod’s help,
it was not beyond attainment; and they preferred to beheve
Hindenburg. The last possible opportunity of a negotiated
peace was therefore allowed to slip by, for it was agreed
that the situation was not so acute as to warrant a direct
peace ofier to the Alhes, but only that negotiations should
be opened as soon as possible through the mediation of the
King of Spain and the Queen of the Netherlands.

The pohcy of self-deception was carried stiU further.
Not even these specified negotiations were seriously under-
taken, and on August 21 the Chancellor informed the
Eeichstag that “there is no ground for doubting our
victory”. As late as September 15 he repeated this assertion
to the party leaders, assuring them that the war would be
carried on to the bitter end, that no peace ofier was con-
templated, and that the time for one was not yet ripe.

Such were the disastrous repercussions of the first occa-
sion on which Hindenburg adopted a seriously divergent
view from that of Ludendorfi, for although within the
circle of the High Command he was taken at his true worth
and occupied the position of “a greatly respected zero”,
outside of Avesnes, to Germans high and low he was
Hindenburg-, the conqueror of the Bast and West, a Titan,
an epic hero, a Siegfried, who would triumph against aU
adversities. The star of the Hiadenburg legend still shone
brightly, and its rays dazzled the intelligence of many who
should have shown better judgment. Undoubtedly the

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Marshal spoke as he believed, but his beliefs were as un-
grounded as those of others built upon his words.

But disillusionnient and nemesis were hot-foot upon the
way. Upon every front, in France and Flanders, in Syria
and Palestine, in Macedonia, and along the Piave, the Allied
legions, refreshed with victory, were pressing hard upon the
tottering fortress of the Central Powers. By September 26
all the ground gained by such bloody sacrifice in the
summer ofiensives had been lost, and once again Germans
and Allies scowled at each other across the Hindenburg
Line. In the south-east the outer bastion of German defence
was falling, for on the 25th news came from Sofia that a
Bulgarian Armistice had become an immediate and un-
avoidable necessity. Despairing cries came too from Vienna
and from Constantiaople. The Quadruple Alliance, which
had for so long existed upon the sole support of German
divisions and supplies, was fast crumbling now that the
source of this cohesive force was drying up.

The Home Front too was cracking. The miseries occa-
sioned by the Allied blockade became daily more harrowing.
Workmen fainted in the factories, women coUapsed in the
streets, few children even had sufficient to eat. What food
there was was of the loathsome Ersatz variety, repulsive
and lacking in nutriment. With hunger came the spectre
of revolution. The clamour for constitutional reform and
the introduction of democratic government could no longer
be silenced. It made itself heard in the Eeichstag and in
the press of the Left; it found support in the hearts of many
soldiers returning to the front from leave at home; it was
utOized by Socialists and Communists ahke, though with
different ends in view. Above all, the intense war-weariness
of the masses made itself evident in the enthusiastic organ-
ization of meetings for the purpose of “supporting a peace
of understanding along the lines of the Eeichstag Peace
Eesolution of July 19, 1917”. These meetings were banned
by the military authorities.

KRBUZNACH AND SPA

161

To meet this grave situation the aged and inert Herthng
was utterly inadequate. The Centre Party refused him their
support and passed into opposition. It was only a matter of
days before his Cabinet must fall.

These events deprived Ludendorff of all judgment and
sense of proportion. As each disquieting report succeeded
another at Spa, his mind became more and more confused
and his imagination more fantastic. His nerves had given
way again and he was consumed with a passion for self-
justification. He had convinced himself that, at the Council
of August 14, he had defimitely urged the beginning of
peace negotiations. He had erased from his memory aU
reference to his actual advice of “strategic defence which
should gradually wear down the enemy’s fighting spirit”.
He was now persuaded that everything was lost and became
obsessed by the terror of an immediate collapse of the
German armies in the field. To prevent the awful circum-
stances of Germany’s thus finding herself stripped, helpless,
and at the mercy of her enemies, an armistice must be
proposed at once and an ofier of peace made to the Alhes
on the basis of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

It is doubtful whether Ludendorfi had ever read this
document, or, if he had, whether he had regarded it as
anything more than a conglomeration of vague generahties.
His conception of such an ofier envisaged a gradual with-
drawal of German troops from France and Belgium to
prepared positions on their own territory where the
struggle could be resumed if the Alhed peace terms proved
intolerable. In no way was the word “armistice” connected
in his mind with the word “capitulation”.

It was late in the afternoon of September 28 when the
First Quartermaster-General reached this decision, and,
su mm oning his aides, he went to inform Hindenburg. His
face, as he passed through the hall of the Hotel Britannique,
was hvid and haggard above his field-grey uniform, with the
cross Pour le Merite ghttering at his throat. When he

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

reached the Marahal’s room he could scarcely speak, but
controlhng himself with an effort, he gasped out that an
armistice must be concluded at once — at once. There was
not a moment to lose.

It took more than a moment to convince old Hindenburg
that he was hearing aright. He had seen Ludendorff in a
state of nerves many times since August 1914, but never to
this degree. But when full realization dawned on him, bring-
ing the shattering of his illusions, his phlegmatic character
came to his rescue. He was deeply stricken, but he kept his
iron control. To the nerve-racked man before him he extended
both his hands and took the other’s right hand in them. It
was a gesture which was to become historic in G-erman
politics, and those who experienced it learned to fear it.
With tears In his eyes he gave his silent acquiescence to his
colleague’s verdict. Later in his career his tears and his
silence were to become notorious.

A httle before noon on the following morning (September
29) in the Chateau de la Fraineuse, the Chief of the General
Staff and the First Quartermaster-General stood before
their Supreme War Lord with the melancholy duty of
confessing to him that he and they were defeated men,
and that this fact must be proclaimed to the world within
twenty-four hours. Wilhelm II behaved with great dignity
of manner, and displayed a nobihty unusual in him. He
did not reproach the Marshal, who, but six short weeks
before, had talked of maintaining himself on French
territory to “enforce our will upon the enemy”, nor the
General who, at the same time, had urged a “strategic
defence which should wear down the enemy’s fighting
spirit”. This was no time for repining. The Emperor was
faced with the question not merely of terminating the
war, but whether he could keep his throne. One means
remained by which the German people might be rallied
to their loyalty to the dynasty and to the defence of their
country d Voutrance. The supreme power, which Wilhelm II

KRBUZNACH AND SPA 163

held as absolute monarch in time of war, must be trans-
ferred to the people themselves, and must be vested in
them. Parhamentary government must be conceded at
once as the forerunner of a new constitution. It was the
only hope. Hintze, who had arrived from Berlin that morn-
ing, urged immediate action. Ludendorfi feverishly supported
him. What was needed was a “Eevolution from above”.

Quicldy and quietly the Emperor made his decisions.
He accepted the unavoidable with fortitude and concurred
in the proposal for an immediate armistice. After some
hesitation and an attempt at procrastination, he took the
final political plunge, and signed the most difficult document
of his career, the proclamation of a parhamentary regime.
The same day he had faced defeat at home and abroad; by
the evening he appeared a broken and suddenly aged man.

On September 30 Count von Hertling, with his Cabinet,
resigned. So passed from the stage the third of Germany’s
war Chancellors. The first had had to go because he was
“too slack” for the High Command; the second because he
was unable to bring the requirements of the High Command
into accord with the growing war-weariness of the people;
and the third, an aged and djdng man, was now departing
when the High Command had lost their grip of the situation.
The search for the fourth continued.

Ludendorfi’s panic had communicated itself to the whole
General Headquarters. It was impossible to wait for a new
Cabinet to be formed; the armistice request must go forth
at once. This demand was communicated to Berlin by
Griinau, the Foreign Office representative at Spa, and he
added: “He [Ludendorfi] said he felt like a gambler, and
that a division might fail him anywhere at any time. I get
the impression that they have aU lost their nerve here”.

At length, in the afternoon of October 1, came the news
that Prince Max of Baden was considering the formation of
a government and, in consideration of this, Hindenburg
telegraphed to the Vice-Chancellor that if by that evening

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

it was certain that a new Cabinet would be formed, be
agreed to delaying action for twenty-four hours; on the
other hand, “if there should be any doubt as to the forma-
tion of the Cabinet, I am strongly of opinion that the
declaration to the Foreign Powers should be issued to-
night”.

That same day the Bulgarians signed an armistice and
Hindenbmg left for Berhn to meet the new Chancellor.
With him went Major von dem Bussche of the General
Headquarters Stafi, who was to break the news to the
party leaders.

There is something strangely ironic in the fact that the
first democratic Chancellor of Germany should have been
a Prussian Major-General, a Prince, and the heir to a
Grand Ducal throne. Yet the choice of Prince Max was not
altogether an unfortunate one. He had shown distinct demo-
cratic tendencies, and his reahsation of the necessity of
peace made him acceptable to the Left. Moreover his
generous work with the Red Cross and for prisoners of war
had earned the sympathy and admiration of friend and foe
alike. But he was too much of a “border-hne man”, and
during the six weeks of his Chancellorship he alternated
between a policy of war-like cunning and a child-like belief in
humanity. His best-intentioned actions were never in time,
and this he realized in the bitterness of the after years. ‘T
thought I should have arrived five minutes before the
hour,” he wrote, “but I arrived five minutes after it.”

His Cabinet, composed for the first time of responsible
Ministers, iucluded Solf as Foreign Secretary, Erzberger as
Minister without Portfoho, General von Scheuch at the
Ministry of War, and such Socialist leaders as Scheidemann
and Bauer. The new Chancellor’s mainstay and support
throughout these troubled weeks was, however, his private
secretary and alter ego, Kurt Hahn, to whom must be
given the credit for such constructive moves as were
made by the Prince.

KRBUZNACH AND SPA

166

At a Crown Council in Berlin, on October 2, the Prince and
the Marshal met before the Emperor. Hindenburg repeated
Ludendorff’s demand for an immediate truce: “The Army
cannot wait forty-eight hours”. Prince Max demurred. The
position, he argued, was very grave and undoubtedly an offer
of an armistice must be made, but such precipitancy as was
demanded by the High Command was suicidal. It would be
interpreted by the Entente as a capitulation. The change of
regime and an appeal to the Fourteen Points smacked too
strongly of a death-bed repentance to be regarded abroad as
anything else but a policy of desperation, and the Prince
was better informed as to the American mentality than the
Marshal. He remembered a conversation he had recently had
with Max Warburg. The best Americans, the banker had
said, were gentlemen, but there were also the self-opinion-
ated individuals who knew nothing of Europe. If Germany
humiliated herself now, not the good type, but the bad,
would be masters of the situation. “In that case Wilson will
not be able to maintain himself against the party machines.
He will demand the German Republic.”

These larger issues the Chancellor endeavoured to explain
to Hindenburg in support of his policy of delay. Let there
be an armistice offer by aU means, but there must be at least
a fortnight in which to prepare the ground.

But the Prince found a united opposition against him.
Hindenburg repeated Ludendorff’s arguments bke a good
child that has learned its lesson, and the Emperor supported
him with unusual violence. “The Supreme Command con-
siders it necessary; and you have not been brought here to
make difficulties for the Supreme Command”, he told the
Chancellor tersely.

There is bttle doubt that, left to himself, Hindenburg
might well have been disposed to agree with Prince Max’s
view. He was stiff unconvinced that the situation was as
desperate as Ludendorff believed it to be, and he was alter-
nating between moments of optimism and depression. His

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

natural tendency, born of a phlegmatic and nerveless char-
acter, was to fight on; on the other hand the tremendous
influence of his partner “in marriage” was against this. It
is even possible that he had come to Berlin in a scarcely
realized attempt to escape the defeatist atmosphere of Spa,
for it was the first time that he had attended a Crown
Council without Ludendorff. “I hoped I could fight down
pessimism and revive confidence,” he writes, “for I myself
was still firmly convinced that in spite of the diminution of
our forces we could prevent our enemy from treading the
soil of the Fatherland for many months.”

But even at a distance the influence of Ludendorff was
strong upon him. To aU the Prince’s arguments he repeated
obstinately the demand for an immediate truce, saying,
what in his heart he did not really beheve, that he could
not give any assurance that a further enemy offensive
would not end in disaster. The Prince pressed him further.
If the Supreme Command beheved that the situation was so
desperate, it was for them to raise the white flag in the field.

Hindenburg did not like it being put that way. He was
not skilled in debate and had never taken an important
decision without Ludendorff, who had usually taken it first.
While preserving his stohd exterior, he was inwardly sorely
perplexed. He could only repeat the brief which he had
learnt, but he agreed to give his final opinion in writing to
the Chancellor next day. As soon as the Council was over
he rang up Ludendorff at Spa, and the letter which followed
bears signs of joint authorship:

The Supreme Command adheres to its demand made on Sunday
September 29, for the immediate despatch of the Peace offer to our
enemies.

Owing to the breakdown on the Macedonian front, whereby a
weakening of our reserves in the West is necessitated, and in con-
sequence of the impossibihty of making good our very heavy losses
in the battles of the last few days, there no longer exists any prospect,
according to human calculation, of forcing peace upon our enemies.

KREUZNACH AND SPA

167

THe enemy is regularly bringing new and fresh reserves into
action The German army still holds fast and repulses all attacks
with success. But the position gets worse every day, and may force
the Supreme Command to make serious decisions.

In these circumstances it is imperative to stop fighting in order to
spare the German people and its allies further useless sacrifices.
Every day lost costs thousands of brave soldiers’ lives.

VON Hindenburg, G.E.M.

This letter is of great historical importance, in that it
states clearly and definitely the causes of Germany’s
collapse and tlie need for an immediate armistice. By
putting his signature to it the Marshal had, despite his
subsequent protests to the contrary, accepted the responsi-
bihty, whatever may have been his private opinion. Of
equal importance is the fact that no mention is made in the
letter of the “stab in the back” theory of which the Marshal
subsequently made so great a feature.

Meantime, on the order of the Supreme Command but
without the knowledge of the Chancellor, the party leaders
had been assembled in the Reichstag Building to hear a state-
ment on the mili tary situation by Major von dem Bussche.
They came in that firm belief of eventual German victory
which had been engendered by four years of ceaseless official
propaganda and lies. Not one of them had the slightest idea
of the gravity of the position; Ludendorff had fooled them
as he had fooled the German people, the Emperor, and
Hindenburg, and, as the staff officer proceeded with his
statement (which bore many marks of similarity with that
which had just been sent to the Chancellor, though written
at least two days earlier), it was as though the grormd rocked
beneath them. Certain sentences flashed at them like burn-
ing arrows. “According to all human calculation, there
exists no longer any possibUity of compeUing the enemy
to plead for peace . . . the enemy is able to make good his
losses through the assistance of America ... we can no
longer win.” And then at last the final stab: “The Supreme

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KKEUZNACH AND SPA

Command have seen fit to propose to fiis Majesty that an
attempt be made to put an end to the struggle . . . every
twenty-four hours can impair the situation and give the
enemy a chance to discover our real weakness”.

His hsteners were dumbfounded, utterly crushed. Ebert
went white as death and could not utter a word; Strese-
mann looked as though someone had struck him. “We have
been hed to and betrayed”, cried Heydebrand, and the
Prussian Minister, von Waldow, staggered to his feet,
muttering “There’s only one thing left now; to put a bullet
in one’s head”. Only the extreme Left, the Independent
Sociahsts, were jubilant. Haase rushed up to Ledebour,
beaming. “Now we’ve got them”, he cried. And he was
right. In this last effort to convince the party leaders of
the correctness of their views, the Supreme Command had
destroyed the last remnant of unity on the Home Front.
Henceforth the Independent Socialists and many others
were for peace at any price, not excluding therefrom the
abolition of the monarchy, a subject which was indeed
being discussed at that moment.

In a last despairing effort to persuade the Supreme Com-
mand to play for time. Prince Max made one final appeal
to Hindenburg on the afternoon of October 3, pointing out
to him that even under the best possible circumstances a
precipitant peace move would mean the loss of Alsace-
Lorraine and of the purely Polish districts of Eastern
Prussia — so much was imphcit in the acceptance of the
Fourteen Points as a basis of negotiation. To this the
Marshal repHed, after the inevitable telephone conversation
with Ludendorff, that the Supreme Command were quite
prepared for the loss of the small French-speaking portion
of the Reichsland, but that any surrender of German
territory iu the East was out of the question.

It became more and more evident that the Chancellor had
read the Fourteen Points while the Supreme Command had
not, and so the situation became more gravely comphcated.

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

169

Berlin and Spa were not speaking the same language at this
moment, and the effect would have been laughable had it
not been so starkly tragic.

But Hindenburg had a further moment of weakening. At
a meeting of the Cabinet he gave expression to his own more
optimistic views and declared that, if the terms of the Entente
were too humiliating, he was for “fighting to the last man”;
but, as Count Boedern, the Finance Minister, acidly pointed
out, this act of gallantry, which was possible for a single
battalion, was not to be expected of a people of sixty-five
milhons. Fighting to the last man had become a favourite
phrase of the Supreme Command; already Prince Rupprecht’s
army had coined the bitter phrase that “The Prussians will
fight on to the last Bavarian”.

Prince Max grasped at this new vacillation on the part of
Hindenburg as one clutching at a straw. Through Haeften
he made a final offer to Ludendorff. A peace offer should
be issued at once, but not coupled with a request for an
armistice. Ludendorff refused utterly and absolutely, and
repeated his original demands. He was anxious to get
Hindenburg back to Spa and to come himself to Berlin. He
knew well — ^who better? — that if a course of action were put
to the Marshal in the name of duty and loyalty he would
follow it blindly, and he feared that such an appeal might
be made at the last moment. But the resistance of the
Chancellor was at an end. With a heavy heart he signed the
note which lay drafted upon his table, and, in the small
hours of October 4, Germany’s appeal for an armistice was
flashed across the Atlantic.

Hindenburg returned to Spa, more wearied by his few
days in Berlin than he had ever been by many arduous
weeks of active service. He was out of place in that atmo-
sphere of politics and intrigue, and he was glad to be back
in an environment which he knew and understood. He
devoted himself to the organization of defence and the
carrying-out of the retreat, which continued steadily. For

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

tte front still held, as he had always believed it would, and,
though the repeated blows of the Alhes forced the German
army to give ground, it still fought with courage and
tenacity, inflicting heavy losses in many deadly rear-guard
actions.

Throughout those sultry October days, Ludendorfi dashed
frenziedly between Spa and BerHn, now endeavouring to
buUy the Government into some form of action, now almost
suppliant in his appeals for half a million more men for the
defence of the country. But he was dealing with differ-
ent types of pohticians from those whom he had been used
to bend to his will. Scheidemann and the other Majority
Socialists in the Cabinet had no reverence for the mihtary
traditions. They were not impressed either by his threats
or by his cajoleries. They were bent upon peace, the peace
that had been so passionately demanded by the Supreme
Command, and they faced with perfect equanimity the
prospect of the First Quartermaster-General’s resignation,
if that became necessary.

And indeed Ludendorff had ceased to be an asset either
to the High Command or to his country. His nerves
had broken completely now, and even his reason seemed
affected. As early as the end of August the Tsar Ferdinand
of Bulgaria, while on a visit to Spa, had drawn the attention
of the Emperor to Ludendorff’s highly nervous condition,
and had suggested that some measures be taken to lessen
the overwhelming burden of his responsibihties. There were
whispers that he had suffered a stroke at Spa on that fatal
29th of September, and his conduct certainly justified such
a belief. The glory had departed.

As the pre-armistice negotiations proceeded, so did
Hindenbrng’s anxiety and indignation increase. The reply
of Woodrow Wilson was couched in courteous terms. The
President made a condition and put a question. An armis-
tice could only be granted upon Germany’s agreeing to
evacuate all occupied Alhed territory, and it was asked for

KRBUZNACH AND SPA

171

whom the German Government spoke; was it “on behalf of
those forces of the Empire that have hitherto been fight-
ing?” Hindenburg was quite ready to agree to the provision
for evacuation; it had been part of Ludendorff’s original
plan to withdraw to prepared positions on German terri-
tory; and the Chancellor was able to assure the President
that the German Government spoke in the name of the
German people and the majority of the Reichstag.

So far so good. The negotiations seemed to be proceeding
“according to plan”. The front was still holding out. Hopes
revived. But here again nemesis appeared. On October 12,
the very day of Prince Max’s Reply to President Wilson,
there occurred the last horror of that unrestricted TJ-boat
warfare which, Hindenburg consenting, had been so relent-
lessly forced by the Supreme Command on a reluctant and
protesting Bethmann Hollweg. The passenger-boat Leinster,
on the Dublin-Holyhead route, was torpedoed, with the loss
of nearly two hundred British and American lives, and for
days bodies were washed up on the English and Irish coasts
to be identified by waiting relatives.

A wave of anger swept over the AUied countries, and this
indignation was reflected in Wilson’s Second Note (October
14). No armistice agreement could be entered into with
Germany so long as her armed forces “continued the un-
lawful and inhuman practices in which they still persist”,
and which the Allies regarded justly “with horror and with
burning hearts”. If an armistice should be granted it could
only be upon terms which would guarantee the maintenance
of the present mihtary superiority of the Allies. Finally,
Germany’s attention was drawn to the fact that one of
the terms which she had accepted was “the destruction of
every arbitrary power anywhere that can separately,
secretly and of its single choice, disturb the peace of the
world; or, if it cannot be destroyed at present, at least its
reduction to virtual impotency”. The German Government
fell within this category. It was within the choice of the

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

German people to change it, and it was implied that peace
would only be granted when they had done so.

This condition was not included in the Fourteen Points
but was made in the course of the President’s address at
Mount Vernon on July 16 , 1918 , which had become annexed
in the nature of a supplement to the Fourteen Points. Its
sentiments were in marked contradistinction to those
expressed some eight months before by the President, in a
Message to Congress on December 4 , 1917 , when he declared;
“We do not intend to inflict any wrong on the German
Empire, nor to interfere in any way in its internal affairs”.

The new Note was in very different language. It was
gradually becoming clear that the AlHes aimed not only at
the capitulation of the German army in the field but at the
abdication of the Emperor and the creation of a Government
based upon accepted democratic institutions. To Hinden-
burg the fiirst of these demands appeared to be the more
outrageous. Like many others at the time, he refused to read
into the latter part of the President’s Note a demand for the
abdication of the Emperor. Such a thing was unthinkable to
him. It remained for Hoffmann, who had never suffered from
delusions, to tell Solf bluntly that the “arbitrary power”
which President Wilson wished to see “destroyed” before
granting an armistice was the Emperor.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff were again united in that
happy state in which their “thoughts were one before they
found expression in words”, for Ludendorff had swung
round and was in agreement with the Marshal that the
mihtary situation was not sufficiently bad to warrant the
acceptance of such humiliating terms. The Supreme Com-
mand now demanded a guerre d, Voutrance on any terms.
They supported the idea of a levee en masse which they had
rejected with scorn when Rathenau had proposed it a week
earher. Ludendorff assured the War Cabinet, on October 17 ,
“on his conscience that a break-through [by the Allies] was
imlikely”. Within a few weeks the campaigning season

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

173

would be over, and with half a million more men be could
retire to tbe Meuse, last out tbe winter, and begin again in
the spring. Above all, tbe Belgians must be told that peace
was still far off, and that “tbe horrors wbicb are inseparable
from war may befall Belgium once again, so that 1914 will
be child’s play compared to it”. Blindenburg supported
him whole-heartedly. There could, he thought, be only one
finale, unless they succeeded in creating one last reserve
from the resources of the people at home. A rishag of the
nation could not fail to make an impression on their
enemies and on the army itself. The Chancellor was dis-
posed to agree, and Ludendorff left Berhn for Spa in the
behef that his views had triumphed. It was a happy home-
comiug; the great twin-brethren were at one again.

Left alone, Prince Max characteristically hesitated.
Could he ready take the responsibihty of breaking off
negotiations and prolonging the war, with all its suffering?
Must he be branded as the man who dehvered Germany
naked and defenceless to her enemies? Between these two
alternatives the Prince might well falter. Misery and
suffering surrounded him. Influenza scourged Berlin. On
October 15 over seventeen hundred people died of it. The
Chancellor was to become infected himself. Starvation
stalked the streets. “Better an end with terror than terror
without end”, advised Scheidemann. But Karl Liebknecht,
the Spartacist, raised a cry still more dangerous, and
preached it pubHcly in the streets and halls of the capital:
“If we get rid of the Kaiser we shall get a decent peace”.

The Chancellor yielded to humanitarianism. He prepared
a Reply to Wilson in almost fawning terms, abandoning
submarine warfare, and accepting the new military con-
ditions laid down by the President. It drew attention to
the recent drastic changes in the German Constitution and
expressed the hope that no demand would be made “which
would be irreconciliable with the honour of the German
people or with opening a way to a peace of justice”,

N

174 KREUZNACH AND SPA

From Spa, Hindenburg and LndendorfE protested ener-
getically against tbe tone of the G-erman Reply, and tten,
failing to prevent its despatch, dissociated themselves from
all responsibility connected with it. Their protests were
repeated even more vehemently when, within forty-eight
hours, Wilson’s Third Note reached Berhn. The President
consented to recommend to the Allied Powers the negotia-
tion of an armistice on the terms agreed, but he added that
if it was still necessary to treat “with the mihtary authorities
and the monarchical autocrats of Germany . . . they must
demand not negotiations for peace but surrender”.

Here was no mincing of words. The last veil was torn
from the Allied demands, and gone was the final hope of
those who had cherished the thought that the Kaiser’s
power might be limited in some form of restricted monarchy
such as that obtaining in England, Belgium, or Scandinavia.
There could be no ambiguity about the last sentence of the
President’s. It meant, in bald language, that the Emperor
must go.

The receipt of Wilson’s Reply, with its cold brutahty of
phrase, moved the High Command to take drastic action.
Hindenburg despatched a personal protest to the Chancellor,
against the pohcy of the Government, who “talk only of
reconcihation and not of fighting the enemies which threaten
the very existence of our country”. On the same day
(October 24) two telegrams were despatched from Spa. The
first was to the Chancellor and contained a denial of the
statement that the Marshal had demanded an immediate
offer of peace, or that he had said that it had become only
a matter of hours. The second was a circular message from
Hindenburg to all Army Group Commanders, describing
the armistice conditions as unworthy of Germany and
unacceptable to the army, and ordering a fight to a finish.

In face of very serious objections from the Gallwitz Army
Group, the second telegram was withdrawn, but not before
it had reached the battalion staffs of at least one army, and

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

175

not before one military wireless operator, an Independent
Sociabst, bad had time to transmit the text from Kovno to
the Reichstag members of his party.

The explanation of this incident is difficult to find. The
first telegram contained a dehberate he, the second involved
an equally dehberate act of insubordination. The question
is; Did the initiative come from Hindenburg himself or
from Ludendorfi? Was it the last occasion on which the
Marshal acted under the influence of the First Quarter-
master General, or was it the first and only time in
Hindenburg’s hfe when he acted on the impulse of the
moment? Certainly Ludendorfi was privy to the whole
afiair, which was entirely in accordance with the views
which he had recently re-espoused. Later he attempted to
excuse his own part in the business by saying that he did
not know it was contrary to the wishes and policy of the
Government. He also stated that, contrary to the usual
custom whereby documents were brought to him for signa-
ture before being taken to the Marshal, this telegram had
already been signed by Hindenburg when it reached him.

On the other hand, it is not incompatibie with Hinden-
burg’s nature to believe that the whole thing was his own
idea. It was in him to wish to escape from responsibihty
and blame, a feature of his character which became more
and more apparent in after-years. He must not appear to
posterity as the one who had taken the lead in a movement
which had ended in the demand for the capitulation of the
German army and the abdication of the Emperor. In the
hght of later events, these may well have been the motives
which urged him to impulsive action. For later the passion
for exculpation led him further and caused him, on
November 1, to write to the Chancellor a letter remarkable
for its humihty of language, in which he excused himself
from the responsibility for the telegram on October 24, on
the ground that it had been “put before me with the state-
ment that it embodied the views of the Government”.

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KEEUZNAOH AND SPA

Whatever the causes, the efiects were of tremendous
importance. The Chancellor was prepared to ignore the first
telegram on the ground that in the excitement of the
moment the Marshal had forgotten the wording of his
telegram of October 1 and the arguments he had used on
the following day to Prince Max himself. The second, how-
ever, could not be passed over. Not only was it an act of bad
faith on the part of the Supreme Command, but it was also
a breach of the new Constitution, which placed the mili-
tary forces under the control of the Chancellor and ruled
absolutely against the joint responsibihty with the Imperial
Government which the Supreme Command had always
claimed. Prince Max had but one course ""open to him. He
went immediately to the Emperor and offered the resigna-
tion of himself and his whole Cabinet. Either they or the
Supreme Command must go; the Emperor must choose.

No other event could illustrate so forcibly the sweeping
changes which had taken place in Germany during the
month of October. The new German democracy had been
challenged and had taken up the gage. The Supreme Com-
mand, the maker and breaker of Chancellors and pohcies
for the past two years, now stands itself impeached before
the Imperial throne; the threat of resignation, so often used
by Ludendorff, is now the weapon of the Chancellor. The
boot is on the other foot!

It was fortunate for Hindenburg that the attack both of
the Chancellor and the Majority in the Eeichstag — ^where a
furious debate had taken place on the 25th — was directed
against Ludendorff personally and not against the Supreme
Command as a whole; fortunate, because, though the laurels
on the Hindenburg legend were stiU green enough within the
Eatherland, with the army as a whole they had withered
visibly. At that very moment Lersner, the Foreign Office
representative at Spa, was warning the Government, “on
the score of his many years’ experience at Headquarters”,
against “having faith in any promise which the High

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

177

Command might make”. He added that a change in the
High Command would be well received by the greater part
of the army, “as confidence in the present High Command
has gone”.

But it was Ludendorfi’s head that the pohticians were
demanding on a charger, eager to avenge the many insults
which they had received at his hands. For this reason the
Chancellor overlooked completely Hindenburg’s share in the
authorship of the telegrams of October 24 — indeed he was
anxious to retain him, in order not to alarm the country —
and concentrated the force of his attack upon the First
Quartermaster-General.

The end came quickly. The Emperor summoned Hinden-
burg and Ludendorff to appear before him on October 26 at
the Schloss Bellevue, where httle more than 15 months before
they had forced him to dismiss Bethmann Hollweg. There,
speaking to LudendorfE alone and ignoring Hindenburg, he
addressed the General in terms which could only provoke a
request to be allowed to resign; a request which was instantly
granted.

Hindenburg remained. He did, it is true, make a half-
hearted request for demission, which the Emperor, whom the
Chancellor had implored to keep Hindenburg at all costs,
somewhat brusquely refused; but the Marshal did not see
fit to draw attention to his own part in the afiair of October
24 nor to say one word in defence of a man who had
been his almost hourly companion for four tremendous
years. Just as he had done nothing to save Hoffmann, to
whom he also owed much, from the wrath of Ludendorff,
so now he allowed the Emperor’s wrath to fall upon the head
of Ludendorff without even attempting to take his own due
share. For, whatever mihtary reputation he had achieved,
Hindenburg owed it to Ludendorff, with all the latter’s
faults, and he fully realized the fact. For four years and
more he had allowed himself to be idohzed, knowing full
well that the greater share of the praise was Ludendorff’s.

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

Theii “happy marriage” had heen a very fortunate one for
him, for, although their partnership had involved blunders
and errors of gigantic size, the blame for these had some-
how stuck to LudendorfE and the glory to himseK. He could
either have shared the blame and credit of his chief adviser,
or have declined responsibihty by divesting himself of much
of the praise that had been so lavishly given him. He did
neither. He remained the Wooden Titan, that effigy which
already held the seeds of decay.

10

Hindenburg returned to Spa on October 27 cast down in
mind and spirit. His scale of values had received a severe
blow, and his world, which for seventy-one years had been
such a very secure one, was beginning to crumble around
him. Despite his protests, the Imperial Government had
accepted every one of Wilson’s humiliating conditions and
were now awaiting a sign from the Allied Powers as to their
fate. For the first time, the protests of the Supreme Com-
mand had been rejected and swept aside, with a brusqueness
that was bewildering. The generals had received scant
courtesy whilst in Berlin. But worst of all had been the
change of mien in the Supreme War Lord. Only three weeks
before, in Hindenbuig’s presence, the Emperor had told
the Chancellor peremptorily that he was not there to put
obstacles in the way of the Supreme Command; yet yester-
day he had greeted his generals coldly, had dismissed
Ludendorff abruptly, and had refused Hindenburg’s own re-
signation. The change, though characteristic of Wilhelm II’s
volatility of spirit, was disconcerting to the old Marshal.

And now he was alone. For the first time since August 23,
1914, when he had met Ludendorfi on the station platform
at Hanover, the dominating personality of his partner was
absent. Their parting in the General Staff building in the
Konigsplatz had been painful, for Ludendorfi had made

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

179

no secret of the fact that he thought the Marshal should have
insisted on resigning also. Hindenburg himself felt that he
had returned from the graveside of a particularly dear friend.
He was now convinced, however, that he had followed the
straight path of duty. He had chosen between his comrade
and his country, or, as he preferred to put it, his Emperor’s
command. So long as he could be ordered by his War Lord
to take a course of action, his soldier’s soul responded with
confidence; in later years he had to find consolation in the
assurance of his advisers that what he did was his duty.
But that day had not yet come, and he was still in the
happy position of having above him one to whose superior-
ity of rank he could bow.

These days of loneliness were full of incident. Every-
where the cause of the Central Powers was fading. From
Vienna and Constantinople came the news that armistices
had been requested, and the breakdown of the Austro-
Hungarian army necessitated a withdrawal of troops in
the West to form a Bavarian army of defence on the
Tyrolese frontier. Sole responsibihty for these decisions
fell upon Hindenburg, and he struggled gallantly to
keep abreast of his ever-increasing load of care until the
arrival of Ludendorfi’s successor as First Quartermaster-
General.

There had been no question as to who should succeed
to Ludendorff. Both the Emperor and Hindenburg had
at once agreed that General Groner was the one man who
could fill the vacancy. His appointment had been made on
the same day that his predecessor had resigned, but as he
was at that moment at Kiev, it was impossible for him to
reach Spa before October 30.

Groner undoubtedly stands out as one of the great tragic
figures of German military history, for it was laid upon
him to play a part in his country’s service which caused
him to be scorned and vilified by his fellow soldiers. Few
soldiers have given more selfless service to the nation

180 KEEUZNACH AND SPA

ttan Las Groner, and few Lave been treated witL sucL
base injustice.

A Wtirttemberger by birtL, Groner was the son of a pay-
master. He entered tLe Wurttemberg army and quickly
distinguished himself by Lis coolness of judgment and Lis
genius for organization. He became an instructor at the
Kriegsahadamie, and Lis courses were eagerly followed
by the young officers who came under Lis influence; to
them he seemed inspired, but throughout Lis military
career he felt himself to be a lonely man, unable to fit
in completely with the rigidity of the Prussian mihtary
machine.

When, however, the General Staff was reorganized after
the younger Moltke’s appointment as its chief, it became
clear that the two officers who must necessarily receive
high appointments were two heutenant-colonels, Erich
Ludendorff and Wilhelm Groner. A sharp rivalry grew up
between them. Neck and neck, they easily outdistanced all
others in competing for the “plum” position of the General
Staff, the head of the Operations Section. But after a
lengthy consideration Groner was passed over, for the sole
reason that his father had been a paymaster, and he was not
therefore of the old military caste. Ludendorff was not an
officer’s son either, but there had been officers in his family
for generations, and this turned the scale in his favour. He
became Chief of Operations, and to Groner fell the parallel
post of Chief of Transport.

The fundamental changes in mobilization and operations
which Moltke made in the Schlieffen Plan, with Ludendorff’s
approval, met with the liveliest opposition from Groner, who
was firmly convinced of the error of weakening the right
wing and of making the sudden attack on Liege. He feared
that too much faith would be placed in the 42-cm. mortars
which Ludendorff had ordered for use against the Belgian
fortress, and he warned against the over-estimation of
technical inventions which tended to destroy the creative

KREUZNACH AND SPA

181

imagination of Staff officers, rendering tliem too prone to
mental rigidity in warfare.

The alternative plan which Groner urged upon Moltke
was one which, had it been adopted, might have altered the
course of the early weeks of the war. Groner was satisfied
that it was possible to defend the line of the Vosges with a
very small number of troops. Two army corps could there-
fore be withdrawn from Alsace and concentrated on the
lower Rhine, thereby making the German right even stronger
than Schlieffen himself had intended. In view of the fact
that Joffre was pledged in advance to an offensive policy,
he would, it was reasoned, have been forced to violate Belgian
neutrality, and thus enable the Germans to fight the fiust
decisive battles of the war under favourable pohtical and
military conditions.

Between the proposals of Ludendorff and Groner,
Moltke characteristically hesitated; finally he attempted a
compromise, adapting part of Groner’s scheme into the
larger framework of Ludendorff’s plan. This resulted, in
1914, in two divisions being immobilized in trains on the
lower Rhine without anyone seeming to know why they
were there. Certainly Moltke seemed to be cursed with the
main mallieureuse.

But it was to Groner that the undying credit belonged for
the amazing perfection with which the transport of troops
and guns and material functioned during the first two
years of the war. Germany had the strategic advantage of
interior lines, and of this Groner made full use. In the
summer of 1916 he was promoted general and placed in
charge of the Army Rood Supply Department, and in the
autumn of that year he became head of the War Office,
with special executive control of the Supreme Command’s
economic programme for the intensification of production.
In this capacity his flair for organization added greatly
to his reputation. The trade-union officials had declared
their refusal to work with a representative of General

182

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

Headquarters, but iu an astonishingly short space of
time Groner had won their co-operation, at first unwil-
hngly and in spite of themselves, but soon in genuine
admiration of his quahties and fair-mindedness. His
success was to his own detriment. Ludendorff became
jealous of the one man in the army who, with the possible
esception of Hofimann, was his equal, and the great
industriahsts resented and suspected his good relations
with the workers. Groner was removed from his work of
organization — Scheidemann declares bluntly that he was
“sacked” and speaks savagely of those who “treated so
shabbily this distinguished man” — and placed in command
first of a division and later of a corps on the Western
Front. When, however, the thankless task of executing the
economic provisions of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had
to be discharged, it was felt by all that Groner was the one
man who could fill the post, and he was consequently
appointed head of the trading corporation in the Ukraine.
It was here that the summons to take up the mantle of
Ludendorfi reached him.

On his arrival at Spa, Groner found himself faced with a
series of problems which demanded of him a ruthless energy,
utter self-denial, and the renunciation of all glory and all
gratitude. With quiet courage he assumed his new responsi-
bihties and showed nobly that he possessed in full measure
the quahties required.

From the outset, however, his task was vastly com-
phcated by the presence at Spa of the Supreme War Lord.
Wilhelm II had found the atmosphere of Berhn, with its
ever-heightening clamour for his abdication, increasingly
uncongenial. To the Chancellor’s almost frenzied protests at
his desertion of the capital at such a moment, he rephed
that, now that Ludendorfi had gone, he must personally
assist Hindenburg, but to Admiral von Hintze, who had
recently been appointed Foreign OflS,ce representative at
Spa, the Emperor said: “Prince Max’s Government is trying

HINDENBURG’S BOMB-PROOF DUG-OUT AT SPA

KREUZNACH AND SPA

183

to throw me out. At Berlin I should be less able to oppose
them than in the midst of my troops.”

So Wilhelm II made his “flight to Varennes”, and
arrived unexpectedly at General Headquarters on October
30, to the intense surprise of the Marshal and of Groner, who
had himself only just reported a few hours before. As a result
there grew up at Spa two distinct groups with very often
divergent policies. At the Hotel Britannique were Hinden-
burg and Groner with the Headquarters Stafi; and a little
outside the town, at the Chliteau de la Fraineuse, was the
Emperor attended by his Adjutant-General, von Plessen, a
former aide-de-camp of Wilhelm I, who was seventy-seven
years of age and whose mind alternated between the two
themes of “shoot them down”, and “the Emperor must
have only good news”; by the head of his Mihtary Cabinet,
the jovial and convivial General von Marschall, and by
others of his military suite. Thus Spa became both the
mili tary and the dynastic storm-centre.

For the question of the Emperor’s abdication was now the
foremost problem on the board. Prince Max was desperately
anxious that he should resign the throne, at least apparently
of his own free will without pressure being brought to bear on
him by the Government. The Crown Prince would also have
to renounce his right of succession, and it was hoped by
means of a constitutional monarchy and a Council of
Regency to save the throne for his eldest son. Prince
W ilh elm, then a child. This view was supported by nearly
all parties except the Independent Socialists on the Left
and the Conservatives on the Right. Had the Emperor
been in Berlin even he could not have faded to realize
the essential soundness of the proposal, but in the feudal
atmosphere of Spa he was still entirely opposed to abdica-
ting and firmly convinced that there was absolutely no
reason for his doing so.

To Hindenbrug the Emperor’s attitude seemed entirely
correct and reasonable. The presence of his Supreme War

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

Lord at Spa was a great pleasure to the Marshal. He was
always glad to be in the company of the Emperor, and in this
he was inspired in no degree by a sense of snobbery, but rather
by that mediaeval fealty of the paladins of Charlemagne.
No one was less of a mystic than Hindenburg, but there was
iimate in every officer of the old Prussian mihtary caste a
strange sense of awe, almost of superstition, in respect of
the sovereign to whom they had sworn their oath of loyalty.
It was the last remnant of rule by Divine Right and was
fostered by the German court to an even greater extent
than, for example, at the far more ancient court of Vienna.^
This respect was more deeply held by Hindenburg’s genera-
tion than by that which followed. It was, for instance,
almost entirely absent in LudendorfE. But Hindenburg
would gladly have gone out to battle at the command
of his “Most Gracious Kaiser, King, and Lord”; indeed
he would have rejoiced to have had the issue thus sim-
plified.

He was soon to have an opportunity of expressing his
views on the dynastic question. Prince Max of Baden, still
sufiering under the combined shock of a severe attack
of influenza and the flight of the Emperor from Berlin, had
passed the intervening days in a fruitless effort to find an
emissary who should go to Spa and there so far penetrate
“the majesty that doth hedge a king” as to bring the
monarch to a sense of realities. Unable to go himself, he
sought vainly for someone who was prepared to fulfil a task
which must almost certainly involve the displeasure of the
sovereign. He begged Prince August-WiUielm, the Emperor’s
son, to go, and, when he would not. Prince Frederick Charles
of Hesse and others. AH refused. At last a sufficiently

^ Count Czernin, for example, sharply criticizes the custom of kissing
of hands on leaving the Emperor’s presence which at Berhn was “some-
thing quite ordinary”. “At Vienna one would never have seen high
officials kissing the Emperor’s hand. Even the most servile would never
have stooped to it.” iln the World War, p. 62.)

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

186

courageous man was found, in the Prussian Minister of
Interior, Dr. Drews.

Drews arrived at Spa on November 1, and was received
by the Emperor in the presence of Hindenburg and Grbner.
The Minister reported the now daily demands in the press
for the Emperor’s abdication, and the growing support for
such an act throughout the country; the Federal States, the
political parties, high industrial and financial circles, all ahke
awaited anxiously the decision of the Emperor to sacrifice
himself for the sake of the dynasty. Further delay could only
end in abdication under pressure and the destruction of the
monarchy.

The Emperor refused point-blank, and reproached Drews
for even broaching the subject to him. “How comes it”, he
demanded, “that you, a Prussian official, could reconcile such
a mission with the oath you have taken to your king?” Hin-
denburg and Grbner fiercely supported him. If the Emperor
abdicated, the army would become nothing more than a
band of brigands and marauders stragghng back to Ger-
many, the Marshal declared; the officers would resign and
t^e troops would be without leaders. Grbner used even
harsher language and denounced both Drews and those who
had sent him in no uncertain terms, and his characterization
of the Chancellor was made with such blunt ferocity that
the Emperor had to come to the Minister’s rescue and soothe
his ruffled feelings.

But he was delighted with his generals. “Drews is sup-
posed to be hard of hearing”, he said to his aide-de-camp
later, “but they both shouted so loud, that he couldn’t
have missed a word, and how splendid to see the solemn
Grbner so carried away. I was delighted to see a South
German so ready to defend the K ing of Prussia. The brave
Suabian!”

“The brave Suabian” was facing greater reahties than
his War Lord. Grbner had left for the front after the inter-
view and there strained every nerve to disengage the army

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

in a rapid retreat to the Antwerp-Meuse line. It was a
diflS.cult device to execute. Precious war material was
within reach of the enemy in this line, and 80,000 wounded
lay in advance or field hospitals which must be evacuated.
The retreat was slower than had been hoped. The final
blow came on November 4, when the British broke through
the line between the Scheldt and the Sambre, east of
Valenciennes. The German rear-guards were thrown into
complete confusion and could not recover themselves.
From then on the German army, in the opinion of its
opponents, was incapable either of accepting or refusing
battle.

Groner realized the situation in all its hopelessness. He
returned to Spa and conferred with the Marshal. He
hastened to Berhn and bluntly informed the Chancellor:
“We shall have to cross the fines with a white flag. Even
a week is too long to wait. It must be Saturday (November
9) at latest”. The Fourth Wilson Note had just arrived,
saying that Marshal Foch would receive “properly accredited
representatives of the German Government”, and would
communicate to them the terms of an armistice. Prince
Max pointed out to Groner that the chief obstacle to favour-
able terms was the refusal of the Emperor to abdicate.
Would not GrSner himself dissipate the illusions at Spa
and make the Emperor reahze the truth?

But Groner was still bitterly opposed to this course. “I
am utterly devoted to the cause of the Emperor”, he in-
formed the Cabinet.

“Perhaps the Field-Marshal . . .” someone suggested;
and Groner turned upon him, shouting: “The Marshal would
consider himself the lowest kind of scoundrel if he abandoned
the Emperor, and so, gentlemen, would I and every honour-
able soldier. If the attacks against the Emperor continue,
the fate of the army is sealed; it will break in pieces, and if
that happens the wild beast will break out in the bands
of irregular soldiery pouring back into Germany.”

KREUZNACH AND SPA

187

That same day he met Ebert and Scheidemann, and other
Social Democrat and trade-union leaders, men with whom
he had collaborated on friendly terms in 1916 and 1917. All
trusted him, and Ebert begged him to urge abdication upon
the Emperor. He himself, said Ebert, was in favour of a
monarchical regime, based upon the trade unions and con-
trolled by a parhamentary system, but this was impossible
under the present Emperor or the Crown Prince. The last
chance of saving the monarchy was to entrust one of the
imperial princes with the regency.

Again Groner refused to consider taking any steps with
regard to an abdication, or even to broach the subject to
the Emperor. But he was shaken. The honest reasoning of
Ebert had afiected him more deeply than had the distracted
pleadings of Prince Max. In his own mind he formed the
impression that the abdication of the Emperor could not
be long postponed, though he could not as yet bring himself
to have any direct share in it. He hoped that the report
which he would make to the Emperor would influence him in
the required direction.

In his heart of hearts Groner would have liked to have
seen the Emperor seek death in the front Une. He had said
as much to Hindenburg, and to Plessen and Marschall,
immediately after the Drews interview. “He should go to
the front”, he advised, “not to review troops or to confer
decorations but to look for death. He should go to some
trench which was under the full blast of war. If he were
killed it would be the finest death possible. If he were
wounded the feehngs of the German people would com-
pletely change towards him.” The two Court Generals were
horrified at the idea, and Hindenburg disapproved of allow-
ing the Emperor to run such risks, but there can be no
doubt that Groner’s reasoning was both patriotic and
practical.

Arrived back at Spa on November 6, Groner gave the
Emperor and Hindenburg the gloomiest possible view of

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

the situation. The country was face to face with revolution;
the fleet was in open mutiny, and the army could no longer
he rehed on. Bolshevik propaganda and the desire of the
people for peace at any price had done their work. The
G-overnment’s authority was no longer existent and the
troops in the interior would refuse to fire on the insurgents.
Under these circumstances the Emperor’s abdication was
well-nigh inevitable, and an armistice must be immediately
and unconditionally accepted.

These were very different sentiments from those to which
G-roner had given vent before the unfortunate Drews only a
week before, and in which Hindenburg had concurred. At
that moment the First Quartermaster-General had only
just arrived from Kiev. He had been neither to the front
nor to Berhn. He had visited both now and, though his
loyalty to the Crown remained unswerving, his clear-sighted
reahzation of facts and his common sense could no longer
allow him to delude himself as to the ultimate issue, and
with his conclusions Hindenburg was again forced to agree.

On the following day the Armistice Commission arrived at
Spa. Its composition had caused much discussion. It had
become known at General Headquarters even before the
receipt of Wilson’s last Note, that the Alhes would not treat
with a representative of the Supreme Command but only
with a commission appointed by the German Government.
There was little competition to lead this body, but by dint
of persuasion, cajoling, and flattery, Erzberger had, most
reluctantly, been jockeyed into this position. He had ac-
cepted provisionally, and had accompanied the rest of the
Commission to Spa, but so uncertain was it that he would
really cross the lines that General von Giindell had been
warned for duty to take his place if he should “run out’’ at
the last moment. It was Hindenburg who finally persuaded
him. With tears in his eyes and clasping Erzberger’s hand
between both his own, he besought him to undertake this
terrible task for the sacred cause of his country. Touched

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

189

and not a little flattered by tins personal appeal from tbe
old Marshal, Erzberger consented to serve, greatly to the
relief of General von Gtindell, and at noon set out with the
Commission to put his signature to a document which was
to be his own death warrants

This event virtually closed the hostihties on the Western
Front and the entire attention of Spa was centred on the
dynastic problem. The tempo was rapidly increasing. The
mutinous sailors of the fleet, whose revolt on November 4
had been the first signal of serious civil disturbances, now
controlled Kiel, Hamburg, and Bremen. Hindenburg’s own
city of Hanover, as well as Brunswick and Cologne, had
mounted the Red Flag, and in Munich the House of Wittels-
bach had been deposed and the Bavarian Soviet Republic
installed. The revolution was in being.

In the afternoon of November 7 the Chancellor tele-
phoned that he had received an ultimatum from the leaders
of the Social Democratic Party. If the abdication of the
Emperor and the Crown Prince had not been announced by
noon next day an immediate revolution was threatened, as
it would be impossible to prevent the rank and file of the
party from joining the Independent Socialists and Sparta-
cists. “A revolutionary gesture is necessary to forestall the
revolution”, Ebert had declared. Prince Max added a re-
quest to be allowed to resign, and made a further plea to the
Emperor to avert catastrophe by announcing his intention
of abdicating as soon as an armistice had been signed and
it was possible to issue writs for a National Constituent
Assembly.

The Chancellor also telegraphed Admiral von Hintze to
press this proposal with aU the zeal at his command, and
the Admiral repaired to General Headquarters. He begged
the Marshal and Groner to come with him to the Chateau
de la Fraineuse and put forward this new solution, which

^ Erzberger was assassinated by NationaKst gunmen in 1921, for the
part which he played in the Armistice negotiations.

O

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

was a compromise between the immediate demands of the
Majority Socialists and the intransigent obduracy of the
Emperor. But the generals refused. Hindenburg protested
that he had given his final opinion to the Emperor and would
have nothing to do with the matter. Groner was equally
adamant, though he was more reserved in his opinion than
the Marshal. He had been reading reports from the front
and from the interior. Hintze went alone to the Chateau
and was met with yet another blank refusal. Wilhelm II
appeared absolutely resolved to keep the Crown.

Thus at the close of November 7 there was an open
breach between Spa and Berlin. The Emperor had spoken
personally to the Chancellor by telephone in a “fury of
indignation” and had twice more that evening refused to
abdicate. So far he was supported both by his mihtary
suite and by the High Command. Hindenburg had again
assured the Emperor of the army’s unswerving devotion to
his person, but Groner had already warned him that in the
event of a civil war the troops would not fight.

By the following morning everyone at General Head-
quarters, except Hindenburg, had been convinced that the
necessity for the Emperor’s abdication was not only im-
perative but immediate. The army chiefs had reached the
same decision at which the Imperial Government had
arrived a week earlier. It was clear, however, that so long
as Wilhelm H beheved he had the support of his army
he would not consider renouncing the throne. The obvious
person to acquaint him with the real state of affairs
was the Chief of the General Staff; but Hindenburg was not
yet convinced of the need, and, had he been so, was con-
stitutionally incapable of enlightening the Emperor.

So the day continued in a welter of illusions. The Emperor
declared his intention of restoring order in Germany at the
head of his army, and ordered Groner to prepare plans
accordingly. Hindenburg was rather relieved at the pro-
spect of action at last. This sitting and waiting, this negotiat-

KEEUZNACH AKD SPA

191

ing back and forth with Berlin,^ irked him. If it was his
Emperor’s command that he should lead troops against the
rebels, he would do so; any action, even the detestable
action of civil war, was better than restless inactivity.

But the moment of his disillusionment was at hand. It
was September 29 over again. Now, as then, it was the
First Quartermaster- General who forced him to realize
the truth. In a heart-to-heart talk, in the same room
in which he had had that momentous interview with
Ludendorfi, Hindenburg heard from Groner the cold and
unassailable facts of the case. The troops in the interior
had gone over to the revolution; the field army was no
longer Kaisertreu. Soldiers’ and Workers’ Councils were
being formed all over Germany and had in their hands the
great railway centres and supply depots. The supplies for
the army itself could not last longer than three or four days.
A repressive operation, such as the Emperor desired, was
not only impossible but lunatic.

Groner had made similar statements before, both to the
Emperor and to the Marshal, but now he spoke with the
conviction of despair, and there was no refuting him. The
time for deception, whether of self or others, was at an end.

While Hindenburg was still bowed with the weight of
these new realizations, the Emperor’s Adjutant-General,
Plessen, arrived to receive the plan of operations which
Groner had been iustructed to prepare. To him the First
Quartermaster-General repeated what he had so recently
told the Marshal. Plessen was utterly taken aback. He
protested violently. Completely cut off from the field army
and breathing only the Byzantine atmosphere of the court,
he still believed in a spirit amongst the troops which no
longer existed. In any case the Emperor and the High
Command, he cried, must not capitulate to “a handful of
revolutionaries, a band of infamous sailors”.

Patiently Groner repeated the facts of the case. Such an
operation as the Emperor envisaged would mean that a

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

civil war would have to be carried on in addition to the
rear-guard action against the enemy. The army was in no
condition to bear such a double burden. Nothing but com-
plete collapse could result from the enterprise.

Dumb with misery, Plessen turned to Hindenburg. The
two septuagenarians, grown grey in the service of three
Emperors, confronted one another in an agony of despair.
The Marshal could give no comfort. With a heavy heart, he
said, he associated himself with Groner’s opinion. Sobbing,
Plessen left the room.

For Groner there remained one ray of hope, the proposal
which Ebert had made to him in Berlin two days before.
The Social Democrats would shortly have the game in their
hands. Ebert himself was a monarchist. By this means only
could the throne be saved. Later that evening he conferred
again with Hindenburg. After a long discussion they agreed
on all points. The Emperor must abdicate in favour of one
of his younger sons, or of the eldest son of the Crown
Prince, but there must be no question of his leaving the
country. Such an action would discredit the monarchy for
ever. He must retire to one of his estates. They shook
hands on it and Groner retired to his own quarters. Twice
during the night he was to be called up by telephone from
Berhn, first by Colonel von Haeften and then by Vice-
Chancellor von Payer, both begging him to urge upon the
Emperor the necessity of immediate abdication and flight.
To both he returned a refusal. He had done his duty. He
had warned the Emperor as early as November 6 that the
army could be no longer be depended upon. That very
evening (November 8) he had repeated the fact to Plessen
and to Hindenburg. He had the Marshal’s promise of co-
operation in the policy which both believed to be correct
and proper to pursue in the interests of the monarchy.

But Hindenburg had another visitor that night. Admiral
von Hintze came to him very late and eloquently placed
before him the arguments for the immediate abdication and

KREUZNACH AND SPA

193

fliglit of tlie Emperor. He must renounce th.e throne to-
morrow and go to Holland. It is probable that Plessen had
gone straight to Hintze after he left the Marshal and Groner,
and told him, in a hysterical state, the doleful news
which he himself had just learned. At any rate this would
confirm Hintze’s own view that the cause of the House of
HohenzoUern was lost, and he put it to the Marshal that in
this case the one paramount consideration was the safety of
the Emperor’s person. This could only be secured by flight.

Torn between two conflicting interpretations of his duty
to his Emperor, Hindenburg was deeply vexed in spirit.
He had agreed with Groner and had given hiTu his word, but
Hiutze’s arguments were so cogent and so plausible. The
tragedy of Ekaterinburg recalled itself to Mm. He could
not run the risk of allowing his Emperor and King to be
captured by a mutinous soldiery and dragged a prisoner to
who knew what end. That must be avoided at aU costs.
Wearily he concurred with the Admiral and retired to pass
what was for Mm almost a thing unknown, a restless night,
during which, it was remarked, the light in his room was
put on and out many times.

However agonized these hours of darkness may have been
for the Marshal, he should not have spent them in in-
activity. To do so was a dereliction of duty both to Ms
Emperor and to Ms colleague Groner. It was well known to
him, and to all at Spa, that the Emperor’s refusal to
abdicate was based on the belief that Ms armies were still
loyal to Mm. This basis Hindenburg now knew to be false,
and so false as to have recently convinced him that further
delay might endanger the very safety of the monarch. In
view of this conviction it was his obvious duty, as Executive
CMef of the Armies, to acquaint the Emperor with tMs
situation without a moment’s delay, regardless of Ms sleep,
and to insist that he take action at once. In addition there
was Ms clear obbgation to tell Groner immediately of Ms
change of mind, and if possible to win Ms approval.

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

But from tHs double duty Hindenburg flincbed and beld
back. He was incapable of going to tke Emperor, as a
Prussian officer to bis War Lord, and teUing bim that the
army was no longer true to bim. It was a disloyal action of
a vassal to his lord, and all the innate forces of the military
caste within bim rebelled in horror against the very thought.
He had not the courage for such a task; another must
undertake it, and that other must be Groner.

November 9, the last day of Imperial Germany, dawned
cold and gloomy. A thick blanket of fog enshrouded Spa,
deadening all sound and seeming to form a barrier against
the outside world. But through the fog the telephone wires
brought worse and worse news. At a very early hour it was
known that a general strike had broken out in Berlin, that
the masses were in the streets, and that the trusted Jager
battahons of veteran infantry had mutinied and deposed
their officers. With such inauspicious tidings the day began.

A conference of divisional, brigade, and regimental com-
manders had been called to meet at G.H.Q. at 9 o’clock,
where they were to be consulted on the loyalty of their
troops. The Marshal had promised to address them, and
shortly before the time he went to Groner’s room. His face,
bearing traces of his night’s agony, was of a sickly greyish
colour, profoundly sad and dejected. His fists were tightly,
almost convulsively, clenched; his eyes red, as though from
much weeping. Hoarsely and abruptly he told Groner of his
change of ffiont, that he had been persuaded by Hintze into
consenting to the immediate abdication and flight of the
HohenzoUerns, and that in an hour they were to make this
recommendation to the Emperor. Groner was shocked out of
his usual oahn. He protested against this sudden voUe-face.
He objected that he could not accept such a complete
change of policy at a moment’s notice. Hindenburg apolo-
gized. “He had not been able to find time” to tell Groner
earlier. There was no more time for discussion; the confer-
ence of officers awaited them.

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

196

The Marshal addressed the officers briefly, but the picture
of the situation that he drew for them was in such sombre
colours that, when he ceased speaking, there was “a silence
as of a tomb; not a word, not a whisper”. Poor old
Plessen, who had joined the meeting unexpectedly, made
no attempt to restrain his tears and held his handkerchief
to his eyes. Groner, who had recovered his poise, remained
impassive and unfathomable. At the close of the address
Colonel Heye was left in charge of the meeting and the
Supreme Command went on their way to the Chateau de
la Praineuse.

During the drive from the Hotel Britannique no word
was exchanged between Hindenburg and Groner. The Mar-
shal was in the grip of a fierce emotional struggle. His lips
quivered and he bit them to regain his self-control. At the
chateau, in a garden room, they found the Emperor, and
with him Plessen, who had preceded them, MarschaU,
Hintze, and the Crown Prince’s Chief of Staff, General
Count von Schulenburg. The morning was cold, the room
was closely curtained, and a wood fire burned in the
grate. Leaning against the fireplace, the Emperor stood and
shivered.

The Emperor asked the Marshal for his report on the
situation. Hindenburg made an effort to speak, but his
voice choked and he could not. The last vestige of reserve
was gone. With tears running down his face he begged his
Emperor’s leave to resign. He could not as a Prussian officer
say to his War Lord what must be said to him. He had there-
fore ordered General Groner to give to His Majesty the con-
sidered opinion of the High Command.

So it was Groner, the “hied&re Schwabe”, who was to be
the scapegoat. Brought up in the military tradition of
Wiirttemberg he could use language which could not sully
the hps of a member of the Prussian military caste. Upon
the shoulders of this lonely South German was laid the task
of disillusioning the King of Prussia.

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

In a quiet and controlled voice G-roner repeated what he
had said to Hindenburg and to Plessen the previous day.
An operation against the interior of Germany was impossible;
it was no longer a question of suppressing an insurrection, but
of civil war. The railway centres and supply depots on the
Ehine were in the hands of the rebels and many troops in the
interior had joined the revolution. They could and would cut
ofi supphes from the field army, which itself could no longer
be depended upon. Mutinies had already taken place, and
Aix-la-Chapelle and Verviers were in the hands of the insur-
gents. The army was no longer in a condition to fight. There
were no more reserves.

While carefully avoiding any direct reference to the
dynastic question, Groner had so phrased his statement as
to leave the Emperor under no other impression than that
his abdication was imperative. Wilhelm II stood speechless
with perplexity, sunk deep in consternation. Not so Schulen-
burg. This dashing and courageous officer took up the
challenge and championed the cause of monarchy, that same
cause which Groner had sought so zealously to save. He
challenged every statement made by the Eirst Quarter-
master-General. In eight to ten days, he declared, it would be
possible to gather on the Khine a force of picked men upon
which the Emperor could imphcitly rely. When the army was
told that the navy had betrayed it, it would not hesitate to
fight on the Home Eront. A beginning must be made by
sending loyal troops to reduce the mutinous garrisons at
Aix-la-ChapeUe and Verviers by smoke-bombs, gas, and
Flammenwerfer. Order must be restored city by city.

At this fighting speech old Plessen regained his nerve.
“His Majesty cannot simply and quietly capitulate to
revolution. The expedition against Aix-la-Chapelle and
Verviers must be put in hand at once.”

Groner listened with an almost grim humour. How little
they knew the situation. Plessen’s fantastic views were
excusable, he had always been “all for gunfire”, but how

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

197

could Scliulenburg talk such nonsense when only yesterday
twelve out of sixteen representatives of his Army Group
had confessed that their troops were unreliable for service
in the interior. The report was lying now on Grdner’s office
table at G.H.Q. Courteously but lirmly he repeated his
views. The suggestion of Schulenburg and Plessen would
render chaos unavoidable.

Meanwhile the Emperor had come to a decision. He would
renounce the idea of reconquering the country. He wished
to spare the Fatherland the horrors of civil war. He would
remain at Spa until an armistice had been signed, and then
return home quietly at the head of his army.

Groner heaved a sigh. So the Emperor had not under-
stood the situation after all. He had still not realized that
the whole revolutionary movement was directed against
himself. The time for diplomatic phrases was passed, he
must speak clearly now.

“Sire, you no longer have an army. The army will march
home in peace and order under its leaders and commanding
generals, but not under the command of Your Majesty, for
it no longer stands behind Your Majesty.”

The Emperor turned upon Groner, his eyes blazing with
anger.

“Excellency, I shall require that statement from you in
black and white, signed by all my generals, that the army
no longer stands behind its Commander-in-Chief. Have they
not taken the military oath to me?”

“In circumstances like these, Sire, oaths are but words”,
replied Groner sadly.

This was too much for Schulenburg. Forgetting the August
Presence, he bellowed at Groner at the top of his voice that
neither the officers nor the soldiers would so disgrace them-
selves as to desert their Emperor and King in the face of the
enemy.

“I have other information”, was the cold reply.

Stung by Schulenburg’s venom, Hindenburg at last

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

broke the absolute silence be bad preserved tbrougbout tbe
meeting and came to tbe support of Groner, but be spoke
balf-beartedly, as if to placate tbe Emperor and bis fellow-
Prussians. Tbe sentiments and priuciples of Count Scbulen-
burg must be shared by every Prussian officer, but most
unfortunately be, no more than General Groner, could take
responsibibty for tbe loyalty of tbe army either at borne or
in tbe field.

As if to give further point to this statement, there came
a laconic telephone report from tbe Commandant of Berbn.
“All troops deserted — completely out of band.”

In considerable agitation tbe Emperor adjourned tbe
Council. It was just eleven o’clock.

By twos and threes they drifted through tbe French
windows and into tbe garden. Tbe Crown Prince arrived.
On bis way be bad been met with “curses and cries and
fists raised in tbe grey mist”, yet be urged bis father to
return with him to his headquarters.

More than an hour passed in talk and argument; con-
tinued gasconades by Scbulenburg, repeated negatives
from Groner, a stobd silence from tbe Marshal. Every now
and then Hintze would join them from the chateau with
some further report from Berbn or with a more imperative
demand for tbe Emperor’s abdication.

Tbe Emperor began to talk excitedly. If tbe worst came
to tbe worst be would abdicate tbe Imperial crown of
Germany, but not the throne of Prussia. He would stay
with bis Prussian troops, who would remain loyal to him. He
glanced at Hindenburg, as if for approval, and tbe Marshal,
bis gaze fixed on tbe distance, nodded silently. Scbulenburg
took up tbe idea joyously. In any and every case tbe Em-
peror must remain King of Prussia. He should gather bis
Prussians around him and then see what tbe Reich would
do. Prussian officers and soldiers would not tolerate tbe
debacle which would follow tbe disappearance of their King.

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

199

“Will they fight for their King against the people?”
asked Hintze pertinently, and Schulenhurg, his dream-
bubble suddenly pricked, had to admit that they would
not. “But in any case”, he repeated furiously, “the Emperor
must remain King of Prussia.”

“A fortnight ago such a solution might have been salu-
tary, but it is too late now”, said G-rdner to Hindenburg;
and again the Marshal nodded abstractedly.

In the midst of their discussions. Colonel Heye appeared
bringing with him the report of the conference of officers.
The thirty-nine representatives had been asked two ques-
tions; first; “Would it be possible for the Emperor to regain
control of Germany by force of arms, at the head of his
troops?” and to this only one affirmative answer had been
returned, while twenty-three were in the negative, and
fifteen ambiguous. To the second question, “Would the
troops march against the Bolshevists in Germany?” the
rephes had been, eight “yes”, nineteen “no”, and twelve
“uncertain”. In summing up the results of his enquiries,
Heye told the Emperor: “At the present moment the
troops will not march against Germany, even with Your
Majesty at their head. They wiU not march against Bol-
shevism. They want one thing only, an armistice at the
earhest possible moment. Every hour gained is of im-
portance.”

A long pause followed Heye’s report. The feehng of
despondency increased. Blow seemed to be following upon
blow in calculated justification of Grbner’s statement. The
Emperor broke the silence. Would the army return to
Germany in good order without him? he asked. Yes, said
Groner; no, said Schulenhurg. But Heye had the last word.-
“It is only under the command of its generals that the
army will return in good order to the Fatherland”, he said
in his usual sonorous tones. “From this point of view the
army leaders have their troops well in hand. If Your
Majesty wishes to march with them, the troops will ask

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notMng better and will be delighted, but the army will
fight no more, either at home or abroad.”

“His Majesty has no need of an army in order to take a
walk”, said Admiral von Hintze bitterly; “what he needs
is an army that will fight for him”.

At this moment the Admiral was called into the ch&teau.

The Chancellor was once more on the telephone. Very
soon Hintze returned with an even graver face. Prince Max
reported that the situation in Berhn had become so
extremely menacing that the monarchy could no longer
be saved unless the Emperor decided upon immediate
abdication.

The Emperor received the message in silence. His face
was livid and he seemed suddenly to have aged by years.
Once again his eyes sought those of Hindenburg, as if
appealing for help and strength. He found nothing. The
Marshal stood motionless, silent, and met the gaze of his
War Lord with a look of despair.

With a visible efiort the Emperor gave his decision. He
would abdicate as German Emperor but not as King of
Prussia; he would hand over the command of the German
armies to Hindenburg but would remain himself with the
Prussian troops. It was Wilhelm IPs last attempt at
compromise, and, having made it, he dismissed his generals
and went in to lunch.

The meal in Hindenburg’s quarters was a sad and silent
one. Little was eaten, for, like sleep, Hindenburg’s usual
hearty appetite had deserted him. He found consolation,
however, in a cigar. Suddenly, a little after two o’clock,
the most astounding messages began to flood in upon him
from Berhn. Disregarding the Emperor’s statement, the
Chancellor, in a last despairing efEort to save the monarchy,
had, on his own responsibihty, announced the abdication
by the Emperor both as the German Emperor and as King
of Prussia, and the renunciation by the Crown Prince of his
claims to both thrones. Prince Max himself had resigned.

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201

handing over the Chancellorship to Ebert, who would
appoint a Regent.

Scarcely had the Marshal had time to reahze the full
meaning of the message when its tremendous sequel
followed. The Prince’s gesture had come too late to be
effective. The Spartacists had seized the Imperial Palace,
and Liebknecht, from its steps, had proclaimed the Soviet
Repubhc. This act had thrown Ebert’s supporters into a
panic, and he had been unable to restrain the impetuous
Scheidemann from proclaiming the Sociahst Republic from
the portico of the Reichstag.

So in the course of a brief hour the Emperor had been
relegated from the position of chief actor in the drama to
that of spectator, for the struggle was now no longer one
of dynastic aspirations, but of Bolshevism against Social
Democracy. The only question now concerning Wilhelm II
was what to do with him, and to this problem Hindenburg
apphed himself. ^

With G-roner, Hintze, and Schulenburg he considered the
situation in the light of the most recent information. It did
not take long to agree that no other alternative to flight
presented itself. The roads back to Germany were blocked
by the revolutionaries. The Second Guard Division, wb'ch
was charged with protecting G.H.Q. from a possible attack
by mutinous troops from Aix-la-Chapelle, was at that time
not beheved to be entirely trustworthy. The troops at Spa
were already organizing a Workmen’s and Soldiers’
Council. Manifestly the Emperor must go, and go at once.
The advantages of Holland and Switzerland as a place of
refuge were canvassed, and, for a number of reasons, the
former was preferred. Hintze was instructed to make the
necessary arrangements with the Foreign Ofhce.

One further ordeal was in store for Hindenburg on this
terrible day, and one of which this time he could not avoid
the responsibility. To him was delegated the duty of
informing the Emperor of the decision taken. With Groner

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and Hintze he drove back to the chateau. The Emperor had
not yet recovered from his surprise and anger at Prince
Max’s “act of violence”. He was beside himself with rage,
and was still furiously refusing either to abdicate as King
of Prussia or to leave Spa. “My God, are you back here
again aheady?” was his greeting to the deputation. Then
turning on Groner, he said passionately, “You no longer
have a War Lord”, and from that moment refused to look
at or address him again.

Standing before his Emperor, Hindenburg made his
report. He was calm now and had overcome his emotion of
the morning. Lucidly he set forth the reasons why he was
no longer able to guarantee the Emperor’s safety at Spa. In
conclusion he said; “I cannot accept the responsibihty of
seeing the Emperor haled to Berhn by insurgent troops and
delivered over as a prisoner to the Hevolutionary Govern-
ment. I must advise Your Majesty to abdicate and to
proceed to Holland.”

The Emperor was convulsed with rage. Did they think
he dared not remain with his troops? No one answered. In
a deathly silence Wilhelm II paced the room. Finally he
came back to the group, and in quieter tones confirmed the
order to Hintze for the preparations for his departure.

Admiral von Scheer was announced, and before him and
his Stafi officers the Emperor requested Hindenburg to
repeat what he had just reported. The Marshal did so,
concluding with the words: “Would to God, Sire, it were
otherwise”.

In a calmer mood, the Emperor agreed that if things were
really as bad as the Marshal said he could not allow himself
to be surprised at Spa. He would abdicate as German
Emperor, but never as King of Prussia. Scheer supported
Hindenburg, saying that it was no longer possible to rely
upon the navy.

“I no longer have a navy”, said Wilhehn II bitterly, and
left the room. It was then five o’clock.

KEBUZNACH AND SPA

203

Sadly Hindenburg returned to the Hotel Britannique.
He did not know that he had seen his Emperor for
the last time. He only knew that he could bear no
more that day. In the morning he would come again and
receive his War Lord’s final commands. But no more
to-day.

Later that evening Plessen came to him with the
news that the Emperor would leave for Holland next day.
Hindenburg suggested that he should go at once to the
Imperial train, but Plessen persuaded him against it. His
Majesty, he said, was overtaxed by all he had gone through.
He should not be disturbed again to-night. To-morrow
would be plenty of time.

The Marshal was relieved. He too was worn out with the
emotions of the day and the previous night. He must have
rest to give him strength for the morrow, when he should
take over the Supreme Command of the Armies from the
Emperor. He retired early, and over G.H.Q. there was an
atmosphere of calm after storm.

But there was to be no handing over of command on the
morrow. Very early in the morning the Imperial train, its
splendours of cream and gold unnoticed in the darkness,
shpped quietly from its siding and vanished towards the
Dutch frontier. When Hindenburg awoke, the church bells
were ringing but his Emperor had gone.

It was Sunday, November 10.

For the remaining sixteen years of his life Hindenburg
was to be haunted by the memories of these November days
and the part he had played in them. For though, thanks to
Schulenburg, Waldersee, and others, Glrdner was mahgned
and traduced by the ofdcers of the Old Aumy, the Prussian
nobility were left in no doubt by the Emperor as to where, in
his estimation, the blame for his abdication and flight really
lay. Rmninating in retrospect at Doom, Wilhelm II became
convinced that while Prince Max of Baden and Hindenburg

204 KREUZNACH AKD SPA

were jointly responsible for his abdication, the responsiblity
for his flight was entirely the Marshal’ sd

^ Where the true responsibility for the Emperor’s flight into Holland
lies, remains a mystery Undoubtedly the immediate responsibihty for
advising the Emperor’s departure from Spa wasHindenburg’sjbutthe idea
was not his own and had its origin much further back. It was not in any
case a chance improvisation conceived in a moment of panic provoked
by the progress of the Revolution Scheidemann states that as early as
the end of October the Emperor knew that the Dutch frontier was open
to him, and he alleges that a request had been made to the Queen of the
Netherlands to give him asylum by none other than the King of England
[Memoirs of a Social Demodai, vol. ii p. 538). It is a fact that a high
Dutch mihtary official, G-eneral van Heutsz, ex-Governor-6eneral of the
Dutch East Indies, visited Spa on the mght of November 8. Moreover, it
had been announced in Holland as early as November 7 that the Emperor
would take up his residence m the district of Apeldoorn, and Niemann,
the representative of the Supreme Command with the Emperor, asserts
that “at Berlin there had been foresight enough to secure that all the
necessary arrangements had been made. . . The inference is that
the Emperor’s journey to Holland had been arranged without the know-
ledge of the Emperor, and Dr. Maurice Beaumont, in his admirable study
of these November days, raises the question of the possibility that
certain high officials were convinced that Wilhelm II would be forced
inevitably to go to Holland and had made arrangements accordingly
{The Fall of the Kaiser, p. 246).

If this suggestion is correct, the circumstantial evidence all points
to Admiral von Hintze. In his capacity of Foreign Office representative
with the Supreme Command he would certainly have met the Dutch
General van Heutsz on the evemng of November 8 Had he seen him
before he paid his late visit to Hindenburg and obtained his agreement
to the immediate abdication and flight of the Emperor? It was certainly
the Admiral who persuaded Hindenburg against the opinion of Groner
to which he had already agreed. It was Hintze who voted with Hinden-
burg in favour of Holland as against Switzerland during the conference
with Schulenburg on the afternoon of November 9, and to him fell the
task of makmg the arrangements for the Emperor’s departure. These
arrangements were not set on foot before 5 o’clock in the evening, and yet
by 4,30 on the following mormng aU was ready for the departure. In
view of the chaotic state of things in Berlin at the moment, this was in-
credibly quick work if the ground had not already been prepared. The
actual orders for departure were issued as early as 12 30 a.m.

As against this there is the Admiral’s own statement that when, very

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

205

Though Hindenburg was later forced publicly to aticept
this responsiblity, he was never entirely sure himself
whether he had been responsible or not. He was always
most anxious to excuse and to explain his conduct on
November 9, and did not hesitate to throw a large share of
the blame upon Groner, regardless of the fact that Groner
had definitely advised against the flight to Holland and
had been but scantily informed of the latest conversations
between Plessen and Hindenburg; regardless too of the fact
that it was he, Hindenburg, who had changed his mind at
the last moment. “You all blame me, but you should blame
Groner”, he once said to the Nationalists; but they were
imconvinced, and it remained one of their strongest holds
over him in his later political career, that he had demanded
the armistice which destroyed the German army and had
sent his Emperor over the frontier. They never ceased to
impress upon him that it was his duty to himself and to
Germany to restore the Emperor and to rehabilitate the
army, and these two considerations played an important
part both in persuading him to accept the Presidential
candidacy and finally to accept Adolf Hitler as Chancellor.

11

The sudden departure of the Emperor had simplified the
problem of Hindenburg’s own personal fine of conduct.
There was now at any rate no question of his accompany-
ing his War Lord into exile. He had been left behind.
There remained, however, the question of his immediate

early on the morning of November 10, he came to the station at Spa, he
found the Imperial train already gone. There ia also the fact that when
the Emperor arrived at the Dutch frontier at 7.30 in the mormng he had
to wait six hours while urgent telephone conversations were held with
the Hague. It is possible, of course, that the Emperor left earlier than
the Admiral expected and that the prepared schedule was thus thrown
out. In any case the weight of circumstantial evidence is against von
Hintze.

P

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KEEUZNACH AND SPA

position. Technically speaking, his appointment to the
Supreme Command of the German armies had been de-
pendent upon Wilhelm II remaining King of Prussia. But
now everything was changed. The Emperor had vanished
without making any act of abdication. What was a loyal
Prussian soldier to do? But here again Fate had answered
the question for him.

While Hindenburg had slept the sleep of emotional
exhaustion on the night of November 9, Groner had been
making history. He sat alone for a long time, reading and
re-reading a document which a courier had brought that
afternoon to Spa. It was the terms for an armistice which
Marshal Foch had handed the day before to Erzberger.
They were staggering in their severity, yet they were no
more harsh than the terms which Hindenburg and Luden-
dorfi had imposed on Russia and Rumania. This fact was
of little consolation to Groner, who realized that the
conditions meant abject surrender and that Germany had
no choice but to accept them. So crushing were the terms of
the AUies that only a strong government in Germany could
ensure their execution. And had Germany a strong govern-
ment?

In deepest thought Groner reviewed the situation before
him. Wilhelm II’s last words to him that afternoon had
released him from his allegiance to the German Emperor,
and he was not vitally concerned with saving the King
of Prussia. But he was a good German, and deeply and
genuinely he was concerned for Germany in her extremity.
What was his duty? His Emperor had fled, his own King,
Wilhelm of Wurttemberg, had abdicated, releasing his
officers from their oaths to him; there remained only
Germany, and his duty was to her.

Five hundred miles away in Berlin was a man whom
Groner knew and trusted, Fritz Ebert, the saddler, the last
Imperial Chancellor and the first Reichsprasident of Ger-
many, who, having failed to save the monarchy through

KREUZNACH AND SPA

207

no fault of his own, was now straining every effort to save
the Revolution. G-roner knew him for an honest and courage-
ous man who, given the chance, would build up a strong
government in Germany. At the moment, however, he was
in grave danger. His Cabinet, scarcely formed, was being
attacked fiercely by the Independents and the Spartacists.
If he failed to keep control, Bolshevism would sweep the
country. With the support of the army, the Social Demo-
crats and trade unions could restore the authority of the
central Government and at least save Germany from the
horror of civil war, Groner saw his duty clearly: it was to
Germany. He picked up the telephone.

Alone, behind locked doors in the Chancellor’s room,
Ebert sat collapsed in his chair. His sweat-soaked collar
and disordered clothes bore witness to the efiorts of the day.
He was exhausted. All day he had fought and struggled,
first for the monarchy, then for the Revolution, and latterly
for the very fife of the Social Democratic Party. For Haase
and Liebknecht were beating him; they had refused to
support the Government, and all over Berlin Independent
and Spartacist agitators were at work. At any moment civil
war might break out. It would be the Commune over again.

Through the windows came the cheers and jeers of the
crowds in the Wilhelmstrasse and from Unter den Linden
the strains of the “Internationale”. The Chancellor rose and
closed the windows. His glance fell on the telephone on his
desk. A private fine connected him direct with Spa. If only
he knew the attitude of the army. Could he depend on the
Corps of Ofi&cers?

Suddenly, as if in answer to his question, the telephone
bell rang. Ebert picked up the receiver with a hand that
trembled. Then he almost wept with joy. . . ,

“Groner speaking.”

Was he wiUing to protect Germany from anarchy and
to restore law and order? the First Quartermaster-General
wanted to know. Yes, he was, said Ebert. “Then the High

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

Command will maintain discipline in tke army and bring it
peacefully home,” Groner repKed.

But the Chancellor wanted guarantees. What was the
attitude of the High Command towards the Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Councils? Orders had been given to deal with them
in a friendly spirit, was the reply. “What do you expect from
us?” asked the Chancellor. “The High Command expects
the Government to co-operate with the Officers’ Corps in
the suppression of Bolshevism, and in the maintenance of
disciphne in the army. It also asks that the provisioning of
the army shall be ensured and all disturbance of transport
communication prevented.”

Ebert had one more question:

“Will the Eield-Marshal retain the Command?”

Groner hesitated a moment, then in a confident voice he
answered:

“Yes, the Field-Marshal will retain the Command.”

“Convey to the Field-Marshal the thanlcs of the Govern-
ment”, was Ebert’s reply.

So when Hindenburg awoke on the morning of November
10, his course of action had already been decided for him.
Very early came Groner, bringing with him the armistice
conditions and the report of the pact he had made with
Ebert. There before Hiudenburg opened a new way of
service. One last questioning of conscience, one final clash
of loyalties, and the struggle was over. Without sacrificing
his personal loyalty to the Crown, he placed his services at
the disposal of the Repubhc and of the army.

To many hundreds and thousands of loyal officers the
collapse of the German army meant that the very founda-
tions of their thoughts and feelings were tottering. They
were faced with the hardest of all inward struggles. “I
thought , writes the Marshal, “that I could help many of
the best of them to come to the right decision in that
conflict by continuing in the path to which the wish of
my Emperor, my love for the Fatherland and Army, and

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

20 £

my sense of duty pointed me.” By so doing he not only
materially contributed to the saving of the Bevolution from
lapsing into Bolshevism, but also made the new regime a
httle more acceptable to his fellow officers and thereby
rendered counter-revolutions considerably more difficult.

It was his greatest and most noble deed; greater than
the victories of Tannenberg and the Lakes, greater far than
anything which occurred in his later hfe. For this act many
deeds less noble may be forgiven him.

Hindenburg, having shouldered this new and heavy
responsibility, at once began upon the grim tasks which it
involved. The armistice terms which Erzberger had sent
must be accepted or rejected by noon the next day and the
Government was anxious for his opinion. There was only
one opinion to be given, but in his telegram to the Minister
of War, the Marshal suggested certain points on which
mitigation of the terms might be gained. If it was impos-
sible to gain these modifications, “a fiery protest should be
raised”, but — and here lay the whole essence of the matter —
“it would nevertheless be advisable to conclude the agree-
ment”.

The armistice came into force at 11 o’clock on the morn-
ing of November 11, and on the following day the German
army began its march homeward, very quietly, in column
of route. Not the least triumph of Groner’s genius for
organization was that the armies of the West were brought
back home quickly and without mishap. The greatest tact
was required in dealing with the new “spokesmen” which
each xmit was permitted to elect, but though revolution-
ized, the mihtary machine remained practically intact, and,
with the exception of some regrettable incidents in the
Rhineland, discipline was strictly maintained.

General Headquarters were transferred on November 15
to Wilhelmshohe in Cassel. Here indeed was tragic irony.
When, in 1870, Paul von Hindenburg, a dashing young
subaltern of the Third Foot Guards, newly decorated with

210

KREUZNACH AND SPA

the Iron Cross, was pressing on to victory and Paris, there
was lodged in this Palace of Wilhelmshohe, where once
Jerome Bonaparte had ruled as King, a deposed and
captive Emperor, his nephew, Napoleon III. Now, half a
century later, in those same rooms sat Marshal von Hinden-
burg, a defeated man, even though decorated with the
Iron Cross with Golden Bays, and across the frontier his
own Emperor was in exile. The wheel had turned fuU cycle.

But at Wilhelmshohe Hindenburg was greeted with every
mark of respect and confidence. A special order was issued
authorizing him and his stafi to be allowed to carry arms,
and Grzesinski, chairman of the Workers’ and Soldiers’
Council of Cassel, pubhshed a proclamation of welcome.
“Hindenburg is fulfilling his duty to-day in a manner which
endears him to us as never before. Hindenburg belongs to
the German nation.” For the first time a German Socialist
was publicly honouring a Prussian General.

And so, in these November days at Wilhelmshohe, the
Hindenburg Legend was rekindled. It had binned very low
a month before and had all but flickered out. But in making
the greatest and hardest decision of his life, in offer ing his
services to the Kepubhc, the Marshal had reawakened the
confidence and the affection of the German people. Evidence
of this increased popularity was to be seen on all sides.
“The majority of red cockades which are on sale in the
streets are portraits of Hindenburg”, announced a Berlin
newspaper. “Hindenburg’s face has been painted over red,
but the paint comes off very easily, and Hindenburg’s face
appears once more.” This and many other portents marked
the metamorphosis of the Legend. And very much of this
renewed popularity Hindenburg owed, all unwittingly, to
Groner, whose timely negotiations with Ebert had made
possible “the approach to Democracy”.

But despite this revival of his personal prestige, Hinden-
burg, during these early days at Wilhelmshohe, was a sad
and lonely man. Now he was alone indeed in the midst of

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

211

new and bewildering events wMcb in nearly every case
were alien to all his conceptions of life. He no longer had
his War Lord to esteem and obey, and though he worked
in close collaboration with Groner, there was nothing of
that warmth of feehng, that harmony of “marital bliss”,
that had characterized his relations with Ludendorff. Ever
between them was the memory of November 9, like a
spectral barrier, and Hindenburg had the rmcomfortable
feehng that Grdner knew.

There was, moreover, little to give him comfort. Ger-
many’s hopes and honour were in ashes, and at home
anarchy and chaos still threatened. The army which Hmden-
burg had brought back home had had a strange welcome.
The veterans, who had fought as gallantly under the bitter
circumstances of defeat as in the intoxicating excitement
of victory, were greeted by the revolutionaries with jeers
and cat-calls, hailed as tyrants and lackeys of tyrants, and
execrated as the butchers of the imperial regime. Officers
were particularly singled out for attack, their epaulettes and
decorations were torn ofi, and, in many cases, they were
brutally manhandled.

Despite his efforts, Ebert was unable to keep the pledges
which he had given to Groner. His position was all but
impossible. The Social Democrats showed neither aptitude
nor capacity for keeping control of the situation. The
machinery of government was breaking down, and the
Independents and Spartacists seized upon every circum-
stance which could inflame the people against the Cabinet.
The refusal of the Alhed Governments to raise the blockade
was grist to Liebknecht’s null, and, if Bolshevism had
triumphed in Germany in the winter of 1918, the bhndness
and stupidity of the diplomacy of the Entente Powers
would have been very largely to blame.

Unable to combat these revolutionary movements, Ebert
endeavoured to conciliate them. The Congress of Workmen’s
and Soldiers’ Councils, which opened in the Prussian House

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KREUZNACH AND SPA

of Deputies on December 16, adopted a resolution grossly
ofiensive to tbe army in general and the High Command in
particular. “As a symbol”, the motion declared, “of tie
destruction of militarism and the abolition of blind obedi-
ence, all badges of rank are to be removed and no arms
carried by soldiers off duty. . . . The rank and file are to
elect their own leaders. . . . Speedy measures are to be
taken for the abolition of the standing army and the con-
stitution of a national guard.”

The wording of this resolution recalls Kerenslcy’s famous
Order No. 1, which played such havoc with the discipline of
the Russian army, but Ebert was anxious to placate the
Congress, which was on the verge of being carried into
the Spartacist camp. He proposed to give authority to the
resolution.

Almost every evening when his colleagues had left him,
the Chancellor made use of the army wire to Wilhelms-
hohe, the secret of which was unknown to his staff, to
confer with Groner, who was thus able to keep his finger
on the pulse of the Government. Now Ebert told him that,
reluctantly enough, he would have to put the resolution
abolishing insignia into force. Groner advised against it.
The Marshal would never stand for it, and Groner did
not feel justified in urging him to do so. The spirit of the
resolution struck at the very heart of military discipline,
which, in any case, had sadly deteriorated.

Groner was correct in his prophecy as to the Marshal’s
reaction. Hindenburg was furious. Already he had come
into conflict with the Councils by forbidding any unit of
the field army to carry the Red Flag and by opposing the
right claimed by the troops to elect and depose their officers.
The terms of the resolution were too much. If carried into
efect, the army would melt away through lack of discipline.
“You may tell the Chancellor”, he said to Groner, “that I
decline to recognixe the ruling of the Congress with regard
to the executive authority of our officers; that I shall oppose

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

213

it by every means in my power, and that I shall not allow
my epaulettes or my sword to be taken from me.” At the
same time he telegraphed to all troop commanders that no
change was to be made in the army regulations. Ebert
begged the High Command to reconsider its attitude. “It is
not we who began the quarrel,” repHed Groner, “and it is
not our business to put an end to it.”

The High Command triumphed, and the resolution was
never put into force. The incident, however, might well have
terminated the good relations between Wilhelmshohe and
Berhn, had not the Spartacist Eising of January 1919 over-
shadowed all other considerations.

In the crushing of this revolt, and the subsequent
deaths of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, the High
Command at Wilhelmshohe had no part. The operations
against the insurgents were conducted by the Majority
Sociahst, Gustav Noske, who had suppressed the naval
revolt at Kiel and was therefore now entrusted by Ebert
with a s im i l ar task. Noske used for his attack on Berlin
the troops of the Guard Cavalry Division, some veteran
Jager battahons, and certain of the volunteer corps which
were springing up all over the country for local protection.
Nominally of course these troops were under Hindenburg’s
authority as Commander-in-Chief; actually, however, they
were commanded by Generals Hofimann and Liittwitz, who
accepted orders from Noske direct, and it was by Guard
Cavalry ofl&cers that the Spartacist leaders were murdered.^
By the middle of January the revolt had been crushed with
such efficiency that those involved in its suppression had
earned the nickname of “Noske’s Butchers”, and the way

^ Not tlie least tragic aspect of the murder of Rosa Luxemhurg is the
fact that at the time of her death she had actually recanted Com-
munism. She was arrested as she left a secret meeting with certain
Majority Sociahsts, at which she had become convinced of the funda-
mental unsoundness of Communist principles and had declared her
intention of leaving the Spartacist ranks.

214 KEEUZNACH AND SPA

was at last open for the meeting of the National Assembly
at Weimar.

The task of withdrawing the armies of the West was
completed by the New Year, and early in February 1919
General Headquarters were removed to Kolberg, in Pomer-
ania, on the Baltic, the scene of the rise to fame of the great
Gneisenau. Here Hindenburg and Groner gave their atten-
tion to the Eastern Front, where bands of irregular volun-
teers were waging a guerilla warfare against the Soviet
forces. The arrival of the Victor of Tannenberg was
hailed with delighted enthusiasm. The glories of August
1914 would be repeated. Hindenburg would again save
East Prussia from the Russians. Military ardour ran
high.

The Marshal issued a rousing proclamation: “You volun-
teers and young comrades, who are determined to risk your
lives in the defence of the Ostmark, remember the brave
men of 1914. And you, old comrades who fought with me at
Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes, come quickly to our
help. Do not let my appeal to the sons of Germany fall upon
ieaf ears!”

It was his plan to raise an army of veterans and volun-
ieers and throw the invader out of the Eastern provinces,
md immediately there was a keen response to his call.
Soldiers who could find no employment and were tired of
)eing insulted, youths who had been too young to fight,
lU answered his appeal. But alas! for their hopes. From
frier, where was the G.H.Q. of Marshal Foch, the Allied
Generalissimo, there came a command to halt. No offensive
)perations were to be undertaken and no advance was to
)e made beyond a demarcated hue.

Hindenburg was furious. He implored the Government
0 reject these demands, but Ebert replied by asking the
ligh Co mm and if they were prepared for a resumption of
ostitities. To this, of course, there was only one reply pos-
ible. Raging impotently, Hindenburg bowed to the inevit-

KEEUZNACH AOT) SPA

216

able and confined Mmself to reorganizing tbe defence of the
German Eastern provinces.

Little by little, however, the new Germany gained
strength and confidence, bnt not without blood and vio-
lence. In March occurred the second Spartacist Rising, and
this again was suppressed by Noske, now Defence Minister,
with great severity. In this operation the reorganized mili-
tary forces of the State, the Reichswehr, were used for the
first time, and Noske’s handhng of this new army, still
scarcely formed from the conglomeration of Freikorps,
regulars, and volunteers which remained as residue from the
war, greatly impressed Hindenburg and Groner. Between
the Old Army and the New there grew up a mutual respect.
“The High Command”, wrote Groner to Noske on March 18,
“has confidence in the Government, limited confidence in
the Ministry of War, and unUmited confidence only in the
Minister for National Defence.”

As the spring progressed, the attention of Germany and
of the whole world turned toward the Peace Conference.
The hopes and fears of all, the ideals of those who dreamed
of a New World, the ambitions of those who sought the
permanent destruction of Germany, centred about Paris.
The old legions of hatred did battle with the new forces of
understanding, and apart, anxious and uncertain for the
future, the world waited apprehensively.

In Germany itself there were still those who hoped for
a peace based upon the Eourteen Points, which, though
severe, might yet be acceptable; and there were those who
still dreamed of armed resistance should the conditions of
peace prove too humiliating. There was no great under-
standing of the real military and political position resulting
from Germany’s defeat. It was a common belief that the
unbeaten German army had only broken ofi an unequal
struggle to secure just peace terms, which America had
offered. There was little or no conception of the deep-
seated hatred which had grown up in the countries of the

216

KREUZNACH AND SPA

Entente against a people who had countenanced the sink-
ing of passenger vessels, the bombing of women and chil-
dren, and the deportation of Belgian civilians. The question
of war-guilt was barely recognized, and the poHcy of Scheide-
mann, who had become Chancellor when the Weimar
Assembly elected Ebert as President of the Republic, not
only fostered these misconceptions, but was itself based
upon them.

The High Command shared none of these illusions. Both
Hindenburg and Croner knew that little could be hoped
from an enemy who had exacted such ruthless terms of
capitulation in the field, and neither of them had any belief
in the possibility of a resumption of hostilities. Groner,
however, considered that, in the last emergency, a cam-
paign of passive resistance could be carried out with effect;
but he prayed that this might not be necessary.

There came at last the day when the conditions of peace
were handed to Count Brockdorff-Rantzau. They were pub-
lished in Berlin on May 7, and at once a wave of rage and
protest swept the country. Even those who had condemned
the war policy of Imperial Germany, such as Prince Lich-
nowsky, the former Ambassador in London, and Dr.
Walter Schucking, the international jurist and pacifist,
joined in appeahng to the Government to reject, at what-
ever cost, terms of so humihating a nature. President Ebert
issued a proclamation against “A Peace of Violence”, and, as
a sign of mourning, ordered the suspension of public amuse-
ments for a week. The Chancellor declared that “the peace
conditions are unacceptable and impossible of execution”,
and with one voice the press demanded either rejection or
negotiation.

For more than a month the battle raged in Berlin,
in Weimar, and in Paris. As a result of such negotiation as
was permitted them, and very largely on account of the
reports which General Malcolm, head of the British Mili-
tary Mission, was sending from Berlin, to the effect that the

KREUZNACH AND SPA

217

new spirit in Gernaany was establisliing itself slowly but
surely and every day more visibly, the German Peace
Commission were able to secure certain important modifica-
tions of the original terms; but when the revised and final
demands of the Allies were received on June 17 they were
still of so crushing a nature that again there arose a national
demand for their rejection. But it was not as unanimous as
before. The Independents were now in favour of accepting
the terms at any price. Though the Allied blockade had been
lifted, there was still a terrible scarcity of essentials; of
clothing, underwear, boots and shoes; even of bread there
was a shortage. “Sign, then there’ll be bread”, became
the slogan of the Independents, who now threatened armed
revolt if the treaty was not accepted. On the other hand,
the Army Associations officially declared through their
officers that they would refuse to serve the Government
if the dictated peace were signed.

Scheidemann and his Government were still unanimously
in favour of rejection; Ebert supported them. The final
word, however, lay with the High Command, for it was idle
to pretend that rejection would not bring with it the re-
sumption of hostihties. Ebert turned once more to Groner.

The issue was passionately debated between Weimar and
Kolberg. The question which confronted the High Com-
mand was whether the fighting spirit of the German nation
was stiU capable of further resistance. Would the nation, in
fact, prefer to accept a humiliating peace rather than face
the alternative of making a last desperate stand involving
in all probability its final overthrow?

After two days of bitter mental conflict, reason triumphed
over a very natural desire for resistance. The reply of the
High Command to the Government was as follows:

In. the event of a resumption of hostilities we can reconquer the
province of Posen and defend our frontiers in the East. In the West,
however, we can scarcely count upon being able to withstand a
serious offensive on the part of the enemy in view of the numerical

218 KEEUZNACH AND SPA

superiority of the Entente and their ability to outflank us on both
wings.

The success of the operation as a whole is therefore very doubtful,
but as a soldier I cannot help feeling that it were better to perish
honourably than accept a disgraceful peace.

VON Hindenbueo, G.E.M.

The sentiments expressed in the final paragraph were
laudable and patriotic in the extreme, but, in writing them,
the Marshal had ignored the fact that he himself had ad-
vised the acceptance of the armistice conditions, no less
hurmliating, in his telegram to Erzberger on November 10.
The desire for exculpation was beginning to show itself,
and became more apparent as the struggle over the treaty
proceeded and the opposition of the Right and the Old
Army officers became more and more vehement.

Seizing upon Hindenburg’s reply, the Independent Social-
ists attacked the Government in the Assembly, and so
weakened its position that Scheidemann resigned on June
20. A new Cabinet was formed, depending for its support
on the Majority Sociahsts and the Centre, with the Socialist,
Gustav Bauer, as Chancellor, and Erzberger, Hermann
MiiUer, and Noske in key positions. Again the fight was on.
A compromise resolution was eventually carried, author-
izing the acceptance of the treaty with the exception of
the articles (227-8 and 230-1) which demanded the sur-
render for trial of the Kaiser and other war “criminals”
and the admission of Germany’s war guilt.

To this counter proposal the Allied and Associated
Powers repHed vsdth an rdtimatum. The treaty must be
accepted or rejected as a whole within forty-eight hours;
in the event of rejection, hostilities would reopen. This
reply was received at Weimar about 11 o’clock on the
evening of Sunday, June 22, and created something
approaching a panic. But here Erzberger, taking up the
fight for signature, suddenly appeared in a new light. Eor
the first time in his career he played the part of a statesman

KEEUZNACH AND SPA

219

rather than of a politician. He defeated the waverers
amongst his own followers of the Centre and brought them
into line with the Independent and Majority Sociahsts,
forming a solid bloc in the Assembly upon which the
Government could rely for support. “Erzberger has the
reputation of being a pure self-seeker in politics”, wrote
a British general from Berlin, when all was over, “but
during the past week he has played a fine and patriotic
role. I almost called it noble.”

But the Cabinet itself was divided. It met at 10 o’clock
on the morning of June 24 and reached no agreement. It
adjourned. At 11 o’clock there came to Noske General
Maercker, whose veterans had taken a prominent part in
crushing the Spartacist revolts; aU the higher Reichswehr
commanders, he said, were prepared to resign from the
army. They would proclaim Noske Dictator of Germany
and reject the treaty. Noske considered the proposal,
hesitated, and — to his eternal honour — ^refused.

The Cabinet met again at midday. Still no agreement.
The sands were running out. The final vote of the Assembly
must be taken that evening, and the Government must
come before it with a united pohcy, or resign. Grimly the
Chancellor adjourned the meeting again until 4.30.

In the meantime Ebert telephoned to Kolberg. He would
only agree to signing the treaty if the High Command had
come to the final conclusion that there was no chance left
of armed resistance. If G.H.Q. still believed in the smallest
possibility of success, Ebert declared, he would throw the
whole weight of his influence in favour of rejection. What
he must have before the decisive vote in the Cabinet that
afternoon was the considered opinion of Hindenburg, and
he would telephone again at 4 o’clock to receive it.

Again the responsibility of decision had been placed
upon the Marshal, and again he had not the courage to
shoulder it. Upon his decision depended peace or war; war,
with all its hopelessness and its reawakened horrors, or

220

KREUZNAOH AND SPA

peace, with, its surrender of Alsace-Lorraine, the Polish
Provinces, and the colonies, with its crushing indemnity,
with its admission of war guilt, and finally, most terrible of
aU for Hindenburg, with its surrender of the Emperor for
trial. He had forced his Emperor to abdicate, he had
urged him to run away, must he now take responsibility
for the decision which should dehver him over to his most
implacable enemies? The nightmare of Spa seized hold on
him again; yet war was impossible.

The great tragedy of Hindenburg’s hfe was that his
mental conflicts were never between right and wrong, but
always between right and right. It was the clash of fealties
which tore his soul, and the result of the struggle was
usually that he was loyal to neither. So now he reached an
impasse. He could not advise the resumption of hostilities,
and equally he could not take the responsibility for accept-
ing the treaty. In the greater issues he lacked moral
courage.

Half an horn before the appointed time they met in
Groner’s office, the Marshal stfll in a state of indecision.
Groner asked him what the reply should be. “You know as
well as I do that armed resistance is impossible”, said
Hindenburg. “You realize ail that this decision means?”
Groner asked. The Marshal, without answering, walked
slowly to the window. How well he knew all that it meant,
and in that moment Hindenburg had made up his mind.
He had not the courage to give the decision to Ebert. He
looked at his watch. It was a quarter to four.

“There is no need for me to stay”, he told Groner; “you
can give the answer to the President as well as I can”; and
he left the room. Some time later, after the fatal call had
been made, the Marshal returned and laid his hand upon
Grbner’s shoulder. “The burden which you have under-
taken is a terrible one”, he said.

That night the National Assembly voted to accept the
Peace Treaty, but in the chronicles of Weimar it is written:

KREUZNACH AND SPA

221

“What finally decided the matter was a trunk-call from
General Groner to President Ebert, in which the former
stated that, if fighting were resumed, the prospects of a
successful issue were hopeless, adding his firm conviction
that in the end even the army would approve the acceptance
of the conditions”.

Hiudenbuxg’s name does not appear.

For the second time Groner had become the victim of
Hindenburg’s lack of courage, and, in the eyes of the army,
the “treachery of Weimar” was added to the “treason of
Spa”. From the charge of disloyalty to the Emperor
Groner sought to defend himself, and in 1922 a Court of
Honour pronounced that he had “acted according to his
conscience, holding that thus he could best serve the
interests of his country”. But in the matter of Weimar he
remained silent in face of the attacks and calumnies which
were repeatedly levelled against him over fourteen years;
and in all this time the Marshal said no word in his defence
or ever denied that the whole responsibihty of the fatal
decision rested with Groner.

Why, a group of his friends once asked Groner, did he
make no effort to protect his name and reputation? “Because
I beheved that in the mterests of the New Army the myth
of Hindenbujg should be preserved”, he repHed. “It was
necessary that one great German figure should emerge from
the war free from all the blame that was attached to the
General Staff. That figure had to be Hindenburg.”

The Marshal’s work was over. The peace terms had put
an end to the German Great General Staff and, on the same
day that the treaty was signed, in the room where, half a
century before, he had seen his Ki ng proclaimed Emperor,
Hindenburg concluded his “second life” with his retirement
from the army. His proclamation of farewell, with its
sincerity of appeal and noble simplicity of language, has
become a historic document. It had been drafted by
Groner:

Q

222

KREUZNACH AND SPA

Soldiers [it read], upon my retirement my thoughts revert in the
first place, with deep emotion, to the long years during which I
was permitted to serve three Royal and Imperial Masters . . . and
at the same time with feelings of deep sorrow to those sad days
when our Fatherland collapsed. The self-devotion and loyalty with
which ofiS.cers, non-commissioned ofi&cers, and men have stood by
me have been a great consolation to me in those unspeakably
difficult times. For this I would ask you aU, and especially the
volunteer corps who have so manfully mounted guard on the
Eastern Front, to accept my lasting thanks. I have, however, to make
a request as well as to express my thanks. Whatever you may think
as individuals about recent events is entirely your own afiaic; but
as regards your actions I would beg each one of you to be guided
solely by the interests of his country. Personal views must be
subordinated to the general welfare — ^however difficult this may
seem. It is only by the united efforts of all of us that we can hope
with God’s help to raise our unhappy German Fatherland from its
present depths of degradation and restore its former prosperity.
Farewell. I shall never forget you! Hindenburg.^

^ The signature itself is of interest. The proclamation is the only
public document signed by Hindenburg, at this period of his life, with-
out the “von” of nobility or the initials G.F.M. (General-Field-Marshal).
He was writing on this occasion as one German soldier to others.

PAET III

WEIMAE AND NEUDEOK

Ill

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

1

Hanovek again; Hanover and retirement, but not the
obscurity of 1911. Then Lieutenant-General von Hinden-
burg, one of the many general of&cers retained d la suite of
their regiments, had passed unnoticed on the streets and
had gone unrecognized on little domestic shopping expedi-
tions. But now on July 4, 1919, the City Bathers, in aU the
dignity of their silt hats and frock-coats, met the Field-
Marshal at the station with an address of welcome and
conducted him with all ceremony, not to his old first floor
flat in the Holzgraben, but to the fine new viUa in Seelhor-
strasse which Hanover had presented to its first citizen of
honour.

It was a strange home-coming and his first since his
departure on the eve of Tannenberg. On that night he had
waited alone, without even an aide-de-camp, for Luden-
dorfi; now, with his son Oskar and Colonel von Kiigelgen in
attendance, with the notorious Oberburgermeister Tramm
to welcome him, with a guard of honour in uniform,
immaculate almost as if there had been no war, he passed
to his new home through great throngs of cheering troops
and citizens. At the villa his wife awaited him, and in that
reunion with her, the first for many months, was his real
home-coming.

Throughout the privations of the war and the terrors of

225

226

WEIMAJi AKD NEUDECK

tlie revolution, when Hanover had been among the first
cities to hoist the Eed Flag, Frau von Hindenburg had
bravely gone about her business and had kept up her
courage by alternate readings in the New Testament and
the campaigns of 1870-71. She had found great comfort in
the friendship of Countess von Crayenberg, whose niece
was now so soon to become Oskar von Hindenburg’s wife,
and together they had passed through the trials and
acknowledged the honours which came to the wife of a great
soldier. She had taken up residence in the new villa, but at
once ofiered to return it to the city when the revolutionary
government took over control in November 1918. To his
great credit, the Mayor, Leinert, who later became President
of the Prussian Diet, refused even to consider such a pro-
posal, and gave strict orders that she was to suffer no
discomfort or indignity.

Her quiet courage was now rewarded, her husband had
come back to her, a defeated general but a hero in the hearts
of his countrymen, and the glory of the home-coming
seemed to make amends for the weary months of waiting.

The enthusiasm of the welcome did not pass in a day. A
perpetual crowd stood before the house in the Seelhorstrasse
and wherever the giant figure of the Marshal appeared in
the streets, all traffic ceased and the crowd gave itself up to
joyful demonstration. His celebrity became a burden to
him. Hating ostentation and devoid of personal ambition,
he chafed at the restrictions which his popularity placed
upon him. “My wife has just gone into Hanover to do some
shopping. I used to like doing it myself but I can’t any
longer. If I cross the Georgstrasse there’s such a crowd that
the traffic has to stop”, he complained to a visitor.

The flood of presents which had poured in on him after
Tannenberg now recommenced with redoubled force. From
rich and poor came gifts appropriate and otherwise. The
house became a museum both from the value of the gifts
and from the personahties of their donors. A Turkish carpet

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

227

from Enver Pasha; a great group of bronze elks from the
province of East Prussia to her saviour; the silver axe of the
Hungarian regiment of which he was Colonel-in-Chief; the
watch which Napoleon had used at St. Helena; all these
stirred memories within him whenever his glance fell upon
them. In one corner of his study hung a particularly
cherished relic, a naval flag, the beloved Schwarz-weiss-rot,
now prohibited by the Republic. They were the colours of
the battle-cruiser Hindenhurg, scuttled in Scapa Flow after
her surrender. A young lieutenant had wrapped them
round his body before jumping overboard, and had brought
them back to the man whose name the ship had proudly
borne, and to the woman who had launched her.

But between Hindenburg and the peace of his retirement
the memories of Spa rose Hke a spectre. How differently
things had worked out from what he had dreamed they would.
He had been wont to say to his intimates at Spa: “As soon
as peace is signed I shall ride with the Emperor through the
Brandenburger Tor to the palace and take part in the
festivities there; then I shall take a cab to the station, go
back to my dear old wife, and no one wiU ever see me
again”. To the burden of responsibility for Wilhelm II’s
flight was added the fear of the Emperor’s extradition and
trial, for which the Alhed press stiU clamoured, and this
possibility haunted the Marshal continually.

His first act on laying down his active command was to
send a letter to Ebert assuming full responsibihty for all
the actions of the High Command since August 1916, in-
cluding the orders of the Emperor, which, he declared, had
been given in every case on his personal advice. At the same
time he wrote direct to Marshal Foch, as Generalissimo of
the Allied Armies, “in the name of the old German army”,
asking him to refrain from pressing for the surrender of the
Emperor:

As the supreme head of an army which through centuries has
upheld the tradition of true soldiers’ honour and knightly sentiment

228

WEIMAR AI® NEUDECK

as its highest ideal, you will be able to appreciate our feeUugs. I am
ready to make any sacrifi.ce to keep this shameful humiliation from
our people and our name. Therefore I put my person entirely at the
disposal of the Allied Powers, in place of my royal master. I am
convinced that every other officer of the Old Army would be prepared
to do the same.

To this appeal the Trench Marshal made no reply.

The gesture made, Hindenhurg settled down to the pre-
paration of his case for posterity. It was a great season for
the production of memoirs. On both sides generals and
admirals, victorious and unsuccessful, rushed into print in
justification of their records and of the particular parts
which they had played. Some wrote their own defence, some
were incapable of doing so. In Germany, Ludendorff pro-
duced two volumes of detailed recollections, and two more
on the work of the General Stafi. Trom neither work does
he emerge a very dignified figure. In Holland “ghost-
writers” had found a happy hunting-ground amongst the
exiled HohenzoUerns. At Amerongen the journalist Eosen
was busy upon the Emperor’s recollections, while at Wieringen
a famous novelist was engaged upon a similar task with the
Crown Prince. So too at Hanover, with General von Mertz
and a journalist as his collaborators, Hiudenburg prepared
his own story, not from “any personal incliuation to author-
ship, but in answer to the many requests and suggestions
that have been made to me”. With such speed did they
work that by September a thick volume of some hundred
and fifty thousand words was pubhshed, entitled Aus
meinem Leben.

As a literary production or as a contribution to history,
the memoirs are unimpressive and disappointing. Pompous
and stilted in style and vague in language, they are
remarkable rather for what is omitted than for what
is told. Considering the author’s career and the material at
his disposal, it is surprising to find only one mention of
Schliefien’s name and none at all of Hofimann’s. On the

WEIMAE AMD MEUDECK

229

other hand both the Emperor and Ludendorfi are referred
to throughout in the most laudatory terms, as if these
passages were dictated by the pangs of conscience. The
events of Spa are dismissed in a single paragraph, a master-
piece of evasive discretion. “I was at the side of my All-
Highest War Lord during the fateful hours. He entrusted
me with the task of bringing the army back home. When I
left the Emperor in the afternoon of November 9, I was
never to see him again! He went to spare his Fatherland
further sacrifices and enable it to secure more favourable
terms of peace.”

In the last chapter, “My Farewell”, the Marshal showed
that he had already imbibed the behef which he was later
to make famous as the “stab-in-the-back”. Eegardless of
the reasons which he himself had given to Prince Max of
Baden for the collapse of the front, he now pronoxmced a
phrase which was to become the fighting slogan of the
German Nationalists and, after them, of the National
Sociahsts. “Like Siegfried, stricken down by the treacherous
spear of savage Hagen, our weary front coUapsed” — ^here
was a basis for the myth that the German army was
not well and truly beaten but had been betrayed by the
Eevolution.

The book concluded with a flight into the future, a
prophesy so strangely accurate that it was later turned to
great political account:

Comrades of the German Army, once the proud and mighty
famous Army! How can you talk of despondency? Think of the men
who gave us a new Fatherland more than a hundred years ago.
Their religion was their faith in themselves and in the sacredness
of the cause. They built up a Fatherland, not on a foundation of
doctrines strange to them but on those of the free development of
the individual within the framework of the whole body-politic, and
on his sense of responsibility to the State. Germany will tread that
path once more as soon as she is permitted to do so. I have an
unshakeable conviction that, as in those days, our historical con-

m

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

fcmuity with our great and glorious past will be preserved and
restored where it has been broken. The old German spirit will
descend upon us again, though it may be that we shall first have to
go through the purifying fires of passion and suffering. . . . When
our national ideals and our national conscience have resumed their
sway among us, we shall see how moral values have been struggling
to birth in our present grievous trials and the Great War, on which
no nation is entitled to look back with more pride than the German
people, so long as it remained true to itself. Then, and then only,
will the blood of all those who fell believing in the greatness of
Germany have been poured out not in vain. In that hope I lay
down my pen and firmly build on you — Young Germany.

The ideal which Hindenburg had in mind was the future
restoration of the monarchy (^^from the tempestuous seas
of our national hfe will once more emerge that rock — the
German Imperial House — to which the hopes of our fathers
clung in the days of yore”). But his ^TareweU message”
conjured up a dream and a vision for the realization of
which Adolf Hitler claimed to stand. The words might well
have been “written for him. On these grounds, and on these
grounds alone — the rehabilitation of the German nation
and of the German army — was he able to claim the support
of the Marshal for the Revolution of 1933; and when
Hindenburg’s political testament came to be written, at a
moment when Nazi fortunes had fallen decidedly low, Hitler
insisted that these words should be incorporated in it.
The Marshal had wrought more than he knew.

On November 1, 1919, the Allied and Associated Powers
presented to the German Government a hst of 830 German
citizens who were arraigned under Article 228 of the Treaty
of Versailles as persons “accused of having committed acts
in violation of the laws and customs of war”, and their
surrender for trial was demanded. It was one of the many
senseless humiliations heaped upon a defenceless Germany.
The list of ‘ ‘war criminals” — they were thus designated
before trial — ^iacluded many hundreds of humble persons,

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

231

engineers who had destroyed industrial plants during the
retreat across France and Flanders, naval officers charged
with offences against Allied shipping, doctors accused of
neglecting wounded prisoners, former U-boat commanders,
and one woman, who was held responsible for ill-treatment
of prisoners.

But in order to escape the accusation of “one rule for the
rich and another for the poor”, the victorious Powers had
added to the list those whom they regarded as morally
responsible for the crimes committed by their subordinates.
The arch-criminal, of course, was the Emperor, but his case
had been covered separately under Article 227 of the
Treaty. Besides, the hst of those “wanted” included nearly
every leading figure in German pubhc life during the war,
the German Crown Prince and the Crown Prince of Bavaria,
the ex-Chancellors von Bethmann Hollweg and Michaehs,
Count Bernstorff, the former Ambassador in Washington;
Field-Marshals von Hindenburg and Mackensen, Generals
Ludendorff and von Falkenhayn, Grand- Admiral von Tir-
pitz, and Admiral von Scheer, who had commanded the High
Seas Fleet at Jutland.

The German people saw, with rage and shame, their most
distinguished leaders pubHcly branded as criminals, and the
Government, who had signed the Treaty under duress, could
not, even had they wished, have arrested men who had done
their duty to their country as they had conceived it. No
one beheved that a trial before courts in foreign countries
would carry with it any elements of justice, and therefore
the verdicts would have no moral force whatever. Moreover,
the offences with which these were charged were the merest
humbug, and it is difficult to understand how any responsible
statesmen could have seriously condoned such a proceeding.

The Government was in no position to execute the
demands of the AlHes. It was still threatened with
counter-revolution from the Bight, and any attempt to
arrest the distinguished personages on the Alhed list of

232

WEIMAR AND NBUDECK

“criminals” would have been the signal for an armed up-
rising of aU the conservative elements in the country. An
attempt was made to secure a few voluntary surrenders.
The G-erman Crown Prince and Prince Rupprecht of
Bavaria both ofiered to give themselves up on behalf of
aU. The great sociologist, Max Weber, called on Ludendorff
to try and persuade him to join them. Ludendorff, forgetting
the claim which he had made at Pless for joint responsi-
bihty, referred bim to Hindenburg, who had been his
nominal superior. Weber replied that aU the world knew
that, in effect, he, and not Hindenburg, had controlled the
Ebgh Command. Ludendorff grinned bitterly — “Yes, thank
goodness”, he said. But he refused to surrender aU the same.

Hindenburg made no move at all. He had offered himseK
in the place of his Emperor, he would make no effort on his
own behalf. “K they want to shoot an old man like myself
who has orJy done bis duty and nothing more, let them come
and take me”, he replied to a deputation who came to beg
him not to give himself up.

The voluntary surrender of great representative Germans
would, in fact, have embarrassed the Powers not a little,
though it is possible that some of the minor and less
sophisticated defenders of Liberty and Democracy would
have been delighted to hang their former opponents as
criminals. But the German Government, with a imited
country behind it, felt strong enough to make a first
gesture of resistance. It refused to surrender the persons
named in the Allied list but offered instead to have them
tried before the Supreme Court of the Reich at Leipzig.
To this the Powers agreed, secretly glad to be free of an
embarrassment which their own senseless rashness had
brought about. A few lesser fry were put on trial; there were
a number of acquittals but some convictions, particularly
in cases where dehberate brutality could be proved, and the
affair was allowed to fall into decent obscurity.

But the great ones of Germany were not to go entirely

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

233

free of public censure. Deeply stirred by tbe charges made
against tbe country of having provoked the war and of
having committed acts in contravention of international
laws and customs, the National Assembly appointed a com-
mittee of investigation, which, on the motion of the Inde-
pendent Sociahsts, was also empowered to enquire into the
charge against the former Imperial Government of having
refused to make peace in 1916-17. If the enquiry should
bring to light the direct culpability of any individual in
Germany, it was proposed to bring him before the Staats-
gerichtshof, the newly constituted High Court of Justice.
The Committee had power to subpoena witnesses, and
many of the distinguished “criminals” on the Alhed list ap-
peared before it, including Count Bernstorff, Bethmann
HoUweg, the former Vice-Chancellor Helfierich, and Admiral
von Kapelle. The pubhc interest centred upon whether
Hindenburg and Ludendorff would be summoned to give
'evidence.

The Independent Sociahsts demanded that no exceptions
should be made rmder any conditions. Hindenburg had been
Chief of the General Staff and in this capacity had exercised
very great influence on pohcies of the day; without question
his testimony must be heard. The Nationahst press was
beside itself at the very idea of Hindenburg’s conduct being
investigated. The thing was incredible even on the part of
such scoundrels as the men of Weimar; on no account must
the Marshal be subjected to this indignity.

But while the Nationahst press fulminated, the Nation-
ahst leaders held conclave. Helfierich’s house in the Hitzig-
strasse was becoming the centre of reaction and counter-
revolution. Here came Ludendorff and others of the late
army leaders, together with veterans of the Vaterlandfront
and the old Conservative Party. What better thing for the
cause of reaction than to capture Hindenburg, to inculcate
him — ^no very difficult task — ^with the behef that the Ger-
man army had been betrayed on the Home Front, and use

234

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

Ms appearance before the Committee of Enquiry for a grand
attack upon the repubhcan regime? Ludendorfi supported
the suggestion warmly. He had already refused to appear
before the Committee unless Hindenburg were called also.
The recollection of joint responsibihty seemed to have
returned.

So in the latter days of November Hindenburg came as a
conquering hero to Berlin. A special saloon car brought Mm
from Hanover, and at the Friedrichstrasse Station a guard
of honour was awaiting Mm. Two regular army officers
were attached as honorary aides-de-camp and two steel-
hehneted sentries were posted in front of Helfferich’s villa
wMle the Marshal was Ms guest. Here for the first time
since October 26 of the previous year he saw Ludendorfi
again. Their meeting was cool but not hostile. Huge
crowds cheered Hindenburg at Ms every appearance, but
these in turn provoked counter-demonstrations by the
Independent Socialists, who missed no opportunity of de-'
picting in flaming terms the dangers of reaction. So flerce
did the faction feeling become that reprisals and disorders
threatened. The Government became seriously alarmed;
they were none too secure in their position and a “state of
siege” stfll existed in Berlin.

Throughout Ms visit Hindenburg’s own attitude was ir-
reproachable, and when matters became really serious he,
in consultation with Noske, issued a dignified address to
the people of Berlin, thanking them for their reception and
appealiag to them for reason.

The thought of Germany’s future fills my mind to-day as it did
during the war [he told his admirers], but in view of the ‘state of
siege’, which stiH obtains in Berlin, I appeal for a cessation of all
demonstrations which disturb traffic and public order. My unity
in thought and will with the people of Berlin gives me the assurance
that this appeal will not be misunderstood.

Would that tMs same common sense had assisted bim M
Ms conversations with Helfierich and Ludendorfi. But he

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

235

was lending a willing ear to their views, and was imbibing
from them the behef that already had found expression in
his own memoirs. He was being indoctrinated with the false
theory of the “stab-in-the-back”, a misquotation from a
statement by a British General, but a theory in justification
of which many iimocent Germans were to suffer when the
National Socialists came into power. For in this doctrine
was the germ of many of Adolf Hitler’s attacks against the
Social Democratic Party.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff appeared before the Com-
mittee of Enquiry on November 18, 1919. In plain clothes
they drove to the Reichstag building through streets
Uned with troops and mounted police who kept back the
cheering and jeering crowds. In the Konigsplatz, later
to be re-christened the Platz der Republik,^ they were
greeted with a storm of hoots and hurrahs. The Reichstag
itself was heavily guarded. Barbed wire barred the entrance
of the side doors, and machine-guns were posted at each
corner. The two commanders were greeted at the entrance
by Herr Warmuth, the Nationahst member of the Com-
mittee, who conducted them up the staircase to the central
committee-room, where a great bunch of chrysanthem ums ,
tied with ribbons of the national colours of ScJiwarz-
weiss-rot, decorated the witness-box.

The Committee was really very anxious to show every
consideration to the Marshal and, as evidence of this, it had
been agreed that he should not be cross-examined by a
Social Democrat chairman, but by Gothein, the Democrat
member, a man of old Prussian Civil Service traditions. His
selection as presiding officer was not a happy one.

As Hindenburg glanced round the crowded committee-
room, he recognized faces he had not seen for a long time.
The long, bearded face of Bethmaim HoUweg recalled their
last clash before the Emperpr in the summer of 1917, and

^ The change of name took place immediately after Ebert’s death in
1925; the square resumed its old name after the Revolution of 1933.

236

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

Count Bernstorfi’s yellow, furrowed features brought back
other memories. The sound of Gothein’s voice recalled him
to the present. “We would wilhngly have spared Your
Excellency the inconvenience of this journey”, the little
man was saying, “had not General Ludendorff attached so
much importance to it.” Without giving any sign of having
heard him, the Marshal, with some deliberation, took his
seat.

The clerk rose to administer the oath, when Ludendorff
interrupted him. Before taking the oath, he said, he wished
to make a statement on behalf of the Field-Marshal and
himself. Their position was ambiguous. According to the
provisions of the Strafprozessordnung, to which the pro-
ceedings of the Committee had to conform, they had the
right to refuse to give evidence. They regarded it, however,
as the right of the German people to hear the truth, and had
therefore come forward of their own accord. They then took
the oath.

Gothein began his cross-examination: “When did the
General Headquarters first consider that the declaration of
the U-boat war should not be later than February 1, 1917,
and why?”

Hindenburg completely ignored the question. He pro-
duced a typewritten document from his pocket. He pro-
posed, he said, to read a memorandum explaining the prin-
ciples of all their actions during the war. The chairman
ruled that this could not be allowed as it would entail the
expression of personal opinion, whereas it was the business
of the Committee to discover facts. Taking no notice of him
at all, the Marshal began to read aloud. He did not read
well. It had been unrehearsed, and he put emphasis on the
wrong passages. He was not at his best.

. . . The war had no parallel in history. Battle areas became
gigantic. The masses of armed men attained a strength hitherto
undreamed of, and the technical feature assumed a predominating
significance. War and world economics became intertwined as never

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

237

before. Our relative strength in men, machines, munitions, and
resources was from the beginning highly unfavourable for us
Never were the imponderabiha of war so important, such as the
morale of the troops and the requirements made upon the central
authorities and local leadership. . , . The unshatterable will for
victory was imperative. But this will to conquer was inextricably
bound up m the assurance that we were in the right. It was not a
question of personal determination, but an expression of the will of
the people. Had it not existed we would not have been justified in
assuming command. The General Staff was trained according to the
system of the great military philosopher, Clausewitz, which looks
upon war as the contmuation of pohcy by means other than those
of statesmanship. Our peace policy had failed. I know with absolute
certainty that the German people, the Kaiser, the Government,
and the General Staff did not want war. . . .

Here the chairman rang his bell. “I must protest’’, he
cried. ''That is an expression of opinion”.

The Marshal looked at him coldly for a moment, then in
a loud voice replied: "The historian will have to decide the
issue”. He continued to read:

. . . The military authorities were of course prepared for the
possibihty of war, which was, perhaps, unavoidable. That was what
they were there for. ... In spite of the superiority of the enemy in
men and material, we could have brought the struggle to a favourable
issue if determined and unanimous co-operation had existed between
the army and those at home. But whereas the enemy showed an ever
greater will for victory, divergent party interests began to manifest
themselves with us. These circumstances soon led to a disintegration
of our will to conquer. , . ,

Again the chairman’s bell. "That is an expression of
opinion as to the internal political situation”, cried Gothein.

Without paying the slightest attention, the Marshal con-
tinued to describe the effects of pohtics on the army and its
final permeation by the revolutionary spirit. "Owing to
this, our will to victory was undermined. I looked for energy
and co-operation, but found pusihammity and weakness.”

"But that again is an expression of opinion!” Gothein

238

WEIMAE AND NBUDECK

was almost weeping with rage and humiliation. Somebody
laughed softly, and the members who sat on either side of
the chairman pulled him down by his coat-tails. Hinden-
burg proceeded to his peroration, unperturbed; he was
speaking now in a voice of such sepulchral depth that all
ears were strained to catch his words:

Out repeated requests for the maintenance of stern discipline and
the strict application of the law met with no results. Our operations
in consequence failed, as they were bound to, and the collapse
became inevitable; the Revolution was merely the last straw. As
an English General has very truly said, ‘‘The German Army was
stabbed in the back”.^ It is plain enough upon whom the blame lies.
If any further proof were necessary to show it, it is to be found in
the utter amazement of our enemies at their victory.

The deep silence which followed the conclusion of the
Marshal’s address was broken only by the crackhng of the
paper as he replaced it in his pocket. The chairman, who

^ There were, in efiect, two British Generals who were inadvertently
responsible for the origins of the theory of the “stab-m-the-back”. The
first was Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice, whose book The Last
Four Months y published in 1919, was grossly misrepresented by reviewers
in the German press as proving that the German army had been be*
trayed by the Socialists on the Home Front, and not been defeated
in the field General Maurice issued a dementi in the German press, but
it was impossible to overtake the lie once it had been launched, and
both Helfierich and Ludendorfi made use of the reviews in their
conversations with Hindenburg.

The other officer was Major-General Malcolm, Head of the British
Mihtary Mission in Berlm Ludendorfi was dining with the General
and his officers one evening, and with his usual turgid eloquence was ex-
patiating on how the High Command had always suffered lack of support
from the civihan Government and how the Revolution had betrayed the
army. In an effort to crystallize the meamng of Ludendorff's verbosity
into a single sentence, General Malcolm asked him: “Do you mean,
General, that you were stabbed in the back?” Ludendorff’s eyes lit up
and he leapt upon the phrase like a dog on a bone. “Stabbed in the
back?” he repeated. “Yes, that’s it, exactly. We were stabbed in the
back.”

WEIMAE AKD NEUDECK

239

had recovered his composure, now repeated his opening
question.

“From the time we assumed the Supreme Command we
regarded the ruthless U-boat War as essential”, replied
Hindenburg. “In the beginning of 1917 it was clear that
U-boat warfare was necessary to help the hard-pressed
Western Front. It was the only way to end the war. Were
we with equanimity to allow our soldiers to be torn to
pieces by American shells and their wives and children to
be starved by the blockade? The U-boat war was the only
weapon with which we could oppose these measures”.

After that he left the submarine warfare to be dealt with
by Ludendorff, who embarked on an endless campaign of
bickering and verbal skirmishing with the Committee. Only
once more did the Marshal intervene to declare that his
views and Ludendorfi’s had always coincided. At noon the
Committee adjourned the hearing sine die, as Hindenburg
said he was fatigued and could not be sure when it would
be convenient for him to attend again.

It had not been a very creditable afiair, for, in view of
their statement that they had come voluntarily before the
Committee, Hindenburg and Ludendorff had treated it with
rank discourtesy. They were at pains to emphasize this in
the statement which they issued to the press on their return
to Helfferich’s house. They had worn civihan dress, they
declared, because they felt they would have been paying
too great a compliment to some members of the Committee
of Enquiry by appearing before them in their Prussian
uniform and orders. Altogether a mean and petty episode,
and one unworthy of Hindenburg’s stature. Moreover, the
harm done was incalculable. Hindenburg’s statement re-
garding the “stab-in-the-back” became a notorious slogan
and added much fuel to the flames of discord which the
Nationahsts were fanning. It contributed materially to the
state of mind which later on produced the campaign of
pohtical assassination; among its victims were Erzberger —

240

WBIMAE AND NEIIDECK

whom Hindenburg himself had persuaded to head the
Armistice Commission — and Rathenau. The Marshal’s
desire for exculpation had overriden his sense of justice
and truth.

The year 1920 was one of continued anxiety and uneasi-
ness for Hindenburg. The spectre of Spa was ever with him,
and he was ridden by the nightmare of the Emperor’s extra-
dition. Five days after the official coming into force of the
Peace Treaty on January 10, the AUied Powers despatched
a Note to Holland demanding the surrender of Wilhelm II.
The Dutch Government refused — it was not bound by the
provisions of a treaty to which the country was not a
party. A month later, the legal executors of the Treaty, the
Conference of Ambassadors, again apphed for the Emperor’s
extradition, and again, on March 5, the Dutch Government
rejected the demand, declaring it to he incompatible with
sovereignty and national honour. It was agreed, however,
that Wilhelm II’s place of exile should be moved from Count
Bentinck’s house at Amerongen, which was within a few
miles of the German frontier, to the more remote castle of
Doom, and to this compromise the Allies agreed with great
relief, since they had at last reahzed that no court of justice
could legally try the Emperor, and that in consequence his
surrender would be a source of very considerable embar-
rassment.

Safe at last from all dangers of being handed over to his
enemies, the Emperor began to take steps to elicit from
Hindenburg a full admission of his responsibility for the
ffight fromSpa. The sighting-shot was fired during the spring
of 1921, in the course of a correspondence with the Marshal
on the question of war-guilt. The Emperor, in a lengthy
memorandum, supplemented by “Comparative Historical
Tables”, sought to show that neither he nor the Imperial
Government was guilty of complicity in bringing about
the war. To this Hindenburg replied fervently: “I agree
with Your Majesty to the uttermost depths of my soul— -in

WEIMAE AND NEUDBCK

241

my long term of military service I have had the good fortune
and honour to enter into close personal relations with Your
Majesty. I know that the best of all the efforts of Your
Majesty throughout your reign were towards the main-
tenance of peace. I can realize how immeasurably hard it is
for Your Majesty to be ehminated from active co-operation
for the Fatherland.” This was so, the Emperor replied, in a
later letter; such an elimination was the cause of “burning
anguish in my soul”. And he added: “As you know, I forced
myself to the difficult and terrible decision to leave the
country only upon the urgent declaration of yourself . . .
that only by my so doing would it be possible to obtain
more favourable armistice terms for our people and spare
them a bloody civil war”.

Here was an uncompromising and unequivocal statement
calculated to leave the Marshal under no misapprehension
as to the Emperor’s views onresponsibihty. During the entire
correspondence, which extended over eighteen months,
Groner’s name did not appear. Both the Emperor and the
Marshal knew the truth of that story.

But there was a tragically human side to this early
exchange of letters in March and April 1921. Both men were
under the shadow of approaching bereavement. The Empress
Auguste Victoria and Frau von Hindenburg were both
dangerously ill at this time and the anxiety of the two
husbands is touchingly referred to in the letters. “I beg to
thank your Majesty most respectfully for your gracious
interest in the illness of my wife. She is not yet out of
danger.” “The condition of Her Majesty has become worse.
My heart is filled with the most grievous worry.” The
Empress lived two years longer, but by the middle of May
Hindenburg was a widower, even more lonely than before.

Some time later the correspondence with the Emperor
was resumed. Finally, in July 1922, Hindenburg shouldered
his burden of responsibility. He wrote from Hanover to the
Emperor:

242

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

Most Sbrenti Highness, Great and Mighty Kaiser^

Most Gracious Kaiser, King, and Lord!

I take tke responsibility for your Majesty’s resolve to go into
exile, a step taken on tkat unbappy ninth of November as a result
of the united demand of all your advisers.

I have already given as the reason the menace of the danger that
Your Majesty sooner or later might have been arrested by mutinous
troops and might be surrendered to the enemy at home or abroad.
The Fatherland had at all costs to be spared such insult and disgrace.
On these grounds I advised, in the names of us all, at the meeting
on the afternoon of November 9, that the journey to Holland be
undertaken, an exile which I considered to be only of short duration.
Even to-day I am still of the opinion that this proposal was the right
one.

It is incorrect to say that on the evening of November 9 I pressed
for immediate departure, as has recently been stated against my
will. For me there exists no doubt that Your Majesty would not have
taken the journey to Holland had you not thought that I, the Chief
of the General Staff, considered this step imperative in the interest
of Your Majesty and of the Fatherland.

As is written in the Protocol of July 27, 1919,^ I only learnt of
Your Majesty’s departure after it had already taken place.

In conclusion of this statement I beg in all respect to be allowed
to assure Your Majesty that I have always pledged unbounded
loyalty to my Kaiser, King, and Lord, and will always do so, and
am therefore willing to take the responsibility for the decision
taken on November 9.

In deep respect and great gratitude, I remain always Your
Imperial and Royal Majesty’s most loyal subject,

VON Hindenburg, G.F.M.

By this letter Hindenburg publicly accepted tbe burden
of responsibibty that was historically bis, and thereby
debvered himself to the Monarchists and Nationalists, who
never ceased to urge certain policies upon him in expiation.
The spectre of Spa became an almost inseparable part of

1 This document, covering the events of November 9 at Spa, had been
jointly prepared by Hindenburg, Admiral von Hintze, Colonel-General
von Plessen, and General Cotmt von Schulenburg. Its discretion and re-
ticence are a tribute to its authorship.

WEIMAE AND NBUDECK

243

ids existence, te was never to escape from it again, and tlie
major policies of ids life thereafter were to be guided by it.

The Emperor delayed two months before sending his
reply from Doom, and when it did come, it was not very
handsome. He was glad, he wrote, that this matter had been
cleared up once and for all, but he had had to wait a long
time before the persons principally concerned could be
persuaded to come forward and declare pubhcly

that I was forced to depart from Spa on the urgent advice of my
political advisers and against my own conviction. I thank you for
having now taken this step, which is necessary not only in the
interests of historical truth, but equally for my personal reputation
and the honour of my House. . . . Convinced that you were loyally
discharging a difficult task, you gave to your Kaiser and King the
counsel which you thought it your duty to give as a result of your
considered view of the Situation. Whether that view was correct
cannot be finally decided until all the facts of those unhappy days
are known.

Such was Hindenburg’s reward. His sovereign graciously
accepted his gesture of assuming responsibhty, but inti-
mated that it was very late in coming and that he was not
at all convinced that the Marshal’s conduct, though loyal in
intent, was justified by events. Hindenburg had not suc-
ceeded in appeasing his Emperor and had given to the
Nationalists that hold over himself which they desired.
From thence to the end he was a hostage in their hands,
urged on to adopt pohcy after pohcy, to veer from one
course of action to another, always with the same end in
mind, to restore t^e monarchy and thus lay the spectre of
Spa for ever.

In these years of his second retirement from the army
Hindenburg took no part in the pubhc life of Germany.
Unlike Ludendorff, who drifted more and more rapidly into
open opposition to the Eepubhc, he maintained a dignified
silence. Of the Kapp 'putsch of 1920, the Communist risings
of 1923 in Saxony and Thuringia, and the Nazi revolt in

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WEIMAE AND NEUDEOK

Munich, during the same year, he remained an impassive
spectator, and if he thought anything at all of Adolf Hitler
after this last escapade, he probably shared the opinion
of Professor Maurice G-erothwohl who, in editing Lord
D’Abernon’s diaries in 1928, said that the National Sociahst
leader had “vanished into oblivion”.

The Marshal lived his life in peace and in such content-
ment as any German could find in that tragic period of his
country’s fortunes. He shot chamois in Bavaria and made
such additions to his collection of pictures of the Madonna
that the walls of one room of the house at Hanover became
completely covered with paintings, etchings, plaques, and
ikons representing the Holy Mother and Child. The period
of the war, and more particularly of the years 1918-19, had
exhausted him more than he had at first realized. He was
dead-tired, and there is no doubt that during these years of
rest and quiet he acquired those great reserves of strength
which enabled him to survive the trials of office to come.
He possessed the priceless faculty of being able to shut
himself off at certain intervals from all cares and to indulge
in complete mental relaxation, by means of the physical joys
of the chase or the aesthetic pleasure of his collection.

His public appearances were rare and were usually
limited to the dedication of some war memorial or to some
reunion of ex-Service men. The outcome of one of these
affairs was so tragic that for a long time he would not attend
a meeting again. It was at Konigsberg in June 1922. The
Marshal had agreed to take the salute of a Nationalist
parade and to address a demonstration. The social unrest,
which accompanied the steady decline of the mark, was at
that time already far advanced, and in order to avoid the
danger of a clash the Prussian Minister of Interior forbade
members of the Eeichswehr, school children, and public
officials to attend the meeting. Despite this order there was
a very great attendance. Former officers of State, the leaders
of the Nationalist Party, the Association of ex-Officers, and

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

245

generals of the Old Army, all flocked to Konigsberg. The
Marshal attended in full parade uniform and received a
tremendous ovation; his car was filled with bouquets flung
by his admirers. But the Communist Party had organized a
counter-demonstration, and the inevitable clash occurred;
serious riots took place in which a number of people were
killed. Hindenburg was so appalled at the outcome that for
over a year he refused to appear in public again.

It was only the tenth anniversary of Tannenberg in 1924
which tempted him forth from his seclusion, when, with
Ludendorfi, Mackensen, Fran 9 ois, and Seeckt, now com-
mander of the Reichswehr, he dedicated the memorial at
Hohenstein before a gathering of more than a hundred
thousand people. To him fell the honour of striking the
foundation stone; and he struck three times, dedicating
each blow in clear, measured tones. The first, he said, was
struck to the fallen in grateful memory, the second to the
hving for remembrance, and ‘the last to the future genera-
tion, that they might vie in achievement with their
ancestors. But in the whole celebration there was a sense
of incompleteness, the feehng that something was lacking.
Hoffmann was not there.

Despite Hindenburg’s reserve and retirement, his name
was kept continually before the pubhc eye, sometimes in
the strangest and most embarrassing connection. In the
Reichstag elections in 1924 there appeared a variety of
strange and irresponsible pohtical parties which invited
the support of the voters. Amongst these was the League
of Herr Hausser, an “Apostle”, who had but one slogan,
“Who loves his Fatherland better than the axe, vote
Hausserbund!” His gospel, which was preached in working-
class districts by long-haired disciples of both sexes, with
quaint robes and sandalled feet, called for an immediate
ahenation of superfluous capital. Those who did not comply
voluntarily with its demands after the estabhshment of a
dictatorship were to be, without more ado, decapitated.

246

WBIMAE AM) NEIIDECK

and the dictator -whom it was proposed to appoint to
carry out this somewhat drastic programme was Hinden-
burg!

For Germany the years of Hindenburg’s second retire-
ment were years of the darkest and most bitter internal
conflict. Saddled with the burden of a peace to which her
signature had been forced, Germany resisted step by step
the execution of the Treaty provisions. The first act of
defiance in the refusal to surrender the “war criminals”
had been followed by others, chiefly in the field of dis-
armament and reparation payments, and the spirit of the
country was steadfastly opposed to “fulfilment”. For this
attitude of mind the AUies were themselves very largely
responsible. A harsh peace had been followed by the con-
tinuation of a war mentahty towards Germany, and no
attempt was made to give assistance to the German
Government, who were at first not unwilling to do their
best to carry out the Treaty provisions. Germany was the
malefactor upon whom a crushing sentence had been
imposed; no help must be ofiered her in carrying out this
sentence, but, if she did not do so, further and more dire
penalties awaited her.

Men were not wanting on the side of the AUies who
viewed the situation in a saner fight, and foremost
amongst these was Major-General Malcolm, head of the
British Mfiitary Mission in Berlin, whose reports had
played an important part in moderating the original
conditions of peace. Most Germans are unaware of what
they owe to General Malcolm, but from those who know
and understand he has earned undying gratitude, and
even to-day, within the Third Reich, his name is still one
to conjure with.^ Before the Revolution of 1933 many
Germans in the highest position in the State expressed

The release of Friedrich Ebert, the son of the former Reichs-
jyrdsident, from a Nazi concentration camp in the winter of 1933 was
largely due to a letter to The Ttmes from Sir Neill Malcolm.

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

247

to the writer the belief that but for Greneral Malcolm’s
timely advice to successive Chancellors, the Weimar Re-
pubhc would almost certainly have fallen a prey either
to forces of Bolshevism or reaction, and that before his
departure in 1921 he had, through his own personal con-
nections, opened the way for the policy of the Locarno
Agreement.

From the moment the Treaty of Peace was signed the
General urged a spirit of helpfulness upon the Alhed
Governments.

Now that peace is signed [he wrote on June 30, 1919], I think we
should do all that we can to support the German Government, and
show it sympathy. It will be attacked by the military on one side
and the Independents on the other. Either, if successful, would be
disastrous for the country and a danger to Europe. We need a stable
Germany. ... If we could in any way alleviate the strict execution
of the peace terms it would be a very great help. Germany can only
be controlled either by promises of help towards reconstruction or
by military action. Threats will hardly control her.

The Allied Powers failed to act on this eminently sane
advice, which was based not upon false sentimentahty
but upon sound common sense. They insisted upon the
most exacting fulfilment of the peace terms and made no
concessions which were not wrung from them by the sheer
inexorabihty of facts. Had, however, the counsel of General
Malcolm, and of other similarly enlightened individuals,
been followed, it is more than probable that the National
Sociahst Party wordd either never have come to exist, or
would at least have found its grave on the Odeonsplatz at
Munich, where, as Lord D’Abernon wrote scathingly in
his diary, “Hitler’s courage was unequal to the occasion”.
Nor probably would Hindenburg have been elected Presi-
dent of the Repubhc, for it was the intransigency of the
• Allies that supplied the Nationalists with their political
raison d'etre, providing them with those cogent arguments
with which, when the occasion arose, they were able to hale

248 WEIMAE AND NEUDEGK

the old veteran forth once more to save Germany from
the Social Democrats.

Obstinacy bred obstinacy. Faced with the cold insistence
of the Allies abroad, and threatened from the Right and
from the Left at home, it was impossible for the new
Germany to acquire a strong government. A procession
of Chancellors passed through the palace in the Wilhehn-
strasse, like the ghostly kings in Macbeth, each holding a
rmrror. Bauer, Fehrenbach, AVirth, Miarx, and Cuno, each fell
as his predecessors had fallen, and wherever a statesman
arose in Germany, Nationalist gunmen meted out to him the
penalty of “treason”. In this form death came to Erzberger
in the Black Forest during 1921, and to Rathenau in the
suburbs of Berhn a year later, their only crime being that
of Erfullung}

The poHcy of obstinate resistance, pursued nolens volens
by successive German Governments, reached its climax in
1923 with the invasion of the Ruhr and, its corollary, the
campaign of passive resistance. Europe seemed faced with
a hopeless deadlock and a complete financial d^dcle was
threatening in Germany which would inevitably have its
repercussions throughout the world. It was the darkest
moment which post-war European history had so far
known. Then, just as the gospel of fulfilment had all but
perished, it found a new apostle in Gustav Stresemann.
“The man and the hour had met.”

The metamorphosis of pohticians into statesmen is among
the many strange developments which have taken place in
Germany since the war. Matthias Erzberger, the intriguer,
Walter Rathenau, the advocate of a levee en masse, Gustav
Stresemann, the jingo annexationist and mouthpiece of the
High Command, all had travelled since 1918 the road to
Damascus, and in the course of their journey had “seen a

1 Seven years later, in 1929, Andr4 Tardieu, speaking in the French
Chamber on this series of assassinations, demanded: “Est-ce qu’il faut
mourir, pour prouver qu’on est sinoet e?"

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

249

great light”. These men were the founders and martyrs —
for Stresemann, though he more than once escaped an
assassin’s bullet, nevertheless gave his hfe for the cause —
of that Policy of Fulfilment which in later years was so
nearly carried to success by their great compatriot, Heinrich
Briining. Their failure, and the consequent tension in
Europe, was certainly not due to their lack of effort.

On September 26, 1923, Stresemann took the most
momentous decision of his career and in the foreign policy
of the Weimar Repubhc, by abandoning the policy of
obstinate resistance for that of constructive negotiation. He
declared the cessation of passive resistance in the Ruhr, and
thereby paved the way for the Micum Agreements between
the German industriahsts and the AUied Commission of
Control. By so doing he had taken the first step along the
road to the Dawes Plan in the following year, to the Locarno
Agreements and the entry of Germany into the League of
Nations, and to that ultimate realization of his dream, the
evacuation of the Rhineland, which he himself was not
destined to see.

Though Hindenburg was but a spectator of these events,
their repercussions did not leave him untouched. In the
height of the storm of radicahsm and protest which swept
the country after the murder of Rathenau, the Chancellor,
Josef Wirth, had declared passionately in the Reichstag,
referring to the instigators of the policy of assassination,
that “This enemy stands on the Right”. This well-merited
denunciation of the Nationahsts’ campaign of terror and
assassination found its echo in Hanover, where Hindenburg
was pubhcly accused in the City Council of being the secret
head of a national league of assassins, and mobs, who once
had brought bim in triumph to his home, now demonstrated
outside it, clamouring for his imm ediate removal from the
city. So venomous did the attack become that he threatened
to disinter the body of his wife and go and hve in East
Prussia.

250

WEIMAE AND NBUDBOK

The storm subsided, however, and peace reigned once
more around the home on the Seelhorststrasse. The Marsha
was never again disturbed by hostile agitation, and the onlj
inconvenience he suffered was from the popular ovations
which soon recommenced whenever he stirred abroad. The
years of his retirement had a mellowing effect upon him
and the mental scars of the war were gradually obliterated,
In his Hanover retreat and in the deep quiet of the Bavarian
mountains he recaptured the peace of mind which had lon^
eluded him. The spectre of Spa, though still unlaid, wag
more remote from him now, and deep reflection was matur-
ing his judgment of the new world in which he Hved. Had
he written his memoirs in 1924 they might well have been
worthier of him, and it is improbable that he would have
endorsed so readily the fallacious theory of the “stab-in-the-
back”.

He was seventy-seven years old, and it seemed as if the
remainder of his days would be passed in the dignified
retirement which he had so well deserved. “‘Ich will meine
Ruhe 1iahen’\ he would answer to all attempts to lure him
into pubhc life, and better would it have been for him and
for his memory could he have had it. But again Fate willed
otherwise. All unknown to Hindenburg his days of peace
were numbered. His third “life” was about to open before
him.

2

On February 28, 1925, died Friedrich Ebert, last Im-
perial Chancellor and first President of the German Eeich.
Not perhaps a great man as judged by the world’s standards,
he was one for whom no German need feel anything but
admiration. Great courage, firm singleness of purpose, and
no Mttle statesmanship were his outstanding attributes, and
lesser men would have shrunk from the overwhelming re-
sponsibilities which the former saddler, joiner, and caf6-
keeper was called upon to take up at the moment of his

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

261

country’s downfall. He was a man of destiny malgre lui,
but, though reared in a school of party strife and factional
hatred, once greatness was thrust upon him he assumed
with it a dignity and a nobihty of spirit that were unexpected.
Though his patriotism was often and bitterly impugned by
his opponents, in reality it never wavered for an instant. It
was not that fanatical, self-defeating breed of patriotism
which works for i m mediate results only and takes no thought
for the morrow, but rather was it one which was ready to
bear all things for the moment if by so doing a richer
heritage might be bequeathed to future generations.
Thus, having been prepared to resist acceptance of the
Peace Treaty to the uttermost so long as a reasonable
chance of resistance remained, once the Treaty had been
signed and ratified, he fearlessly championed its fulfilment.
In bim Erzberger, Rathenau, and Stresemann had found
a loyal supporter.

During Ebert’s Presidency Germany had arisen from the
ashes of her defeat, and at his death she stood on the
threshold of re-entry into the family of European nations.
The Weimar regime had, like the infant Third French
Republic in 1871, survived the flight of its Government
from the capital in the face of armed revolt, and Ebert had
returned from Stuttgart, like Thiers from Versailles, if not
in triumph, at least bringing with him the beginnings of
stabihty. The country had gradually revived economically
and pohticaUy, and had gaine'd once more a position among
the Powers. That wizard of German finance. Dr. Hjalmar
Schacht, and the Finance Minister, Hans Luther, had reduced
the monetary chculation and confined it within economic
limits; in addition they had made huge reductions in per-
sonnel and abohshed economically rmproductive organiza-
tions, thus completing the Liquidation of the socialist legisla-
tion of the war and the Revolution. Politically, Ebert him-
self had resisted the separatist activities in the west and
had cemented the Reich of Weimar into a more stable

252

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

edifice. Stresemann, having rehabilitated the country in the
eyes of the world, was on the eve of greater triumphs.

Ebert’s sudden death, at the age of fifty-four, was a
disaster for Germany and for Europe, for his work, though
within an ace of success, was still uncompleted. Germany
was standing at the cross-roads between democracy and
reaction, and though for a moment political strife was
stilled, it needed but the spark of a national election for
the old hatreds to blaze up again in all their fury. Thus,
while Ebert was borne with funereal pomp and dignity to
his burial, men asked themselves apprehensively who his
successor would be.

By the Constitution the election of a President must
take place within a month of the termination of the period
of office of his predecessor, or, alternatively, from the date
of vacancy, by the “common, equal, direct, and secret
vote” {allgemeine, gleiche, unmittelbare und geheime Wahl) of
every citizen, male and female, who had reached the age of
twenty. To be elected, a candidate had to receive an ab-
solute majority of the votes cast, and if this were not
secured, a second ballot was held in which only a simple
majority was necessary.

Clearly, then, there was not much time to spare, and
negotiations were at once opened between the party
leaders to find a candidate who could unite the forces of
the moderate parties, or even have, in the second ballot^
the support of the Nationahsts or the Social Democrats.
The obvious man for this choice was Otto Gessler, the
bullet-headed Bavarian leader of the Democrat Party, who
had succeeded Noske as Minister of Defence after the Kapp
'putsch in 1920, and had held that office ever since. Gessler,
who, like Grbner, was the son of an N.C.O., had risen to be
Biirgermeister of Niiinberg and had been Ebert’s most inti-
mate friend in pohtical fife. He had done much to cement
the loyalty of the Reichswehr to the Weimar regime, a fact
which had largely contributed to the successful handhng

WEIMAR AND NEUDBCK

263

of the National SociaKst and Communist risings in the
autumn of 1923. He had all the innate “canniness” and some
of the cunning of the petit bourgeois mind; his pubhc record
was a good one and he seemed an eminently suitable
successor to Ebert.

The candidature of Gessler was strenuously opposed by
the extreme Nationahsts, but he was acceptable to the
majority of the parties, and negotiations had progressed
so far that at a meeting in the Reichstag of the members
of the Centre Party it was announced that there was a
safe majority for him as the candidate of a hhc composed of
the Social Democrats, Centre, Democrats, and the German
People’s Party. His nomination seemed assured when sud-
denly in the lobbies a whisper began to circulate connecting
Gessler’s name in haison with a certain Berlin lady of high
position. It was a malicious slander spread by the extreme
Right, but it had the desired effect. Throughout the Reichs-
tag budding, where meetings of other pohtical parties
were being held, the rumour ran like a flame, followed by a
further canard, emanating this time from the extreme Left,
that, if Gessler were adopted as a Majority candidate, the
French Government would at once make revelations regard-
ing their dossier on the secret mihtary organizations such as
the Black Reichswehr, Orgesch, and others.

It was, however, the imputation against Gessler’s good
name that did him most harm. The members of the parlia-
mentary Frahtionen knew well that the allegation was un-
true, but the slander caught hold upon the imagination of
the delegates from the country and the provincial towns.
Hours passed in fruitless efforts on the part of Gessler’s
friends to convince a majority of representatives in the
parties that the rumour was false. Excited debates took
place in every committee-room, and in the corridors the
Nationahsts rubbed their hands with glee. They had de-
feated the one move which they feared most, the adoption
of a Majority candidate; the forces opposed to them would

s

264 WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

now be divided, and a Nationalist candidate stood a very-
good chance of heading the poll.

In part they were right. Gessler’s nomination was
dropped and there remained neither the time nor the in-
clination to find another Majority candidate. Though for the
Eepubhcans the only point of real importance was that a
genuine Republican of proved loyalty should be elected,
the Repubhcan parties were now hopelessly divided, each
putting forward a separate candidate for the people’s
choice.

Meanwhile, in the Nationalist camp there was a hasty
call-over of possible candidates for the throne once their
electoral candidate had triumphed at the polls and had
fulfilled his task of restoring the monarchy. Too much
attention was given to these day-dreams and too little to
the selection of the candidate himself. Eventually a bar-
gain was struck with the German People’s Party, whereby
their candidate. Dr. J arres, the Burgermeister of Duisberg,
should appear as the joint nominee of the two parties
acting together as a Reichsblok.

There were dissensions in the parties of the Right also.
LudendorfE, whose part in the Munich 'putsch of 1923 had
been tacitly ignored at the subsequent trial, announced his
intention of standing as the nominee of Adolf Hitler, who
had recently been released from prison and was slowly and
painfully rebuilding his pohtical machine. It was the re-
appearance of Ludendorfi in the arena under such a banner
which provoked Hindenburg to break his silence on pohtical
subjects. In the name of their former friendship he wrote to
Ludendorfi begging him, as the first and last favour he
would ever ask, to withdraw from the contest in which he
could only meet with ignominy and defeat. But the Mar-
shal’s adAuce was never even acknowledged. LudendorfE;
contemptuous of wise counsel, plunged into the fight -witl
that same fanatical haftred of the Weimar System whicl
had prompted his support of Kapp and Hitler. His defeat

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

255

was no more humiliating than he merited, hut by this time
his reason was definitely affected, and he had adopted the
worship of Thor and Odin, to whom altars were erected in
the garden of his villa in Munich. To this eccentricity was
later added the phobia that the destruction of German
culture, and, indeed, of European civilization, was being
encompassed by an unholy and surprising combination of
world- Jewry, the Grand Orient, and the Roman Catholic
Church!

On March 29, 1925, seven major candidates offered them-
selves to the electorate: Jarres, for the Reichsbloh', Otto Braun,
Prime Minister of Prussia since 1921, for the Social Demo-
crats; Wilhelm Marx, a former Chancellor, for the Centre;
Ernst Thalmann, for the Communists; Held, the Bavarian
Prime Minister, for the Bavarian People’s Party; Hellpach,
for the Democrats; and General Ludendorff, for the National
Socialists. The fight was bitter, no holds were barred. But,
as had been obvious from the first to everyone except the
Reichsbloh, there could be no complete victory for any one
candidate. The results of the ballot were:

Jarres .

. 10,400,000

Braun .

. 7,800,000

Marx

. 3,900,000

Thalmann

1,900,000

Hellpach

1,600,000

Held .

1,000,000

Ludendorff

280,000

A second ballot was necessary. Both the Right and the
Left had learned their lesson. Only by concentration could
victory be won. A hasty reorganization of party machinery
began in both camps. For the Repubhcan parties the issue
was a simple one. The Social Democrats, Centre, and Demo-
crats allied themselves into a Weimarbloh, Braun and Hell-
pach giving way to Marx as candidate. This combination
on the return of the first ballot could command a total of

256

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

some tldrteen million votes, and against it tlie possible con-
centration of the ReichsbloJc with the Bavarian People’s
Party and the National Sociahsts could not expect, on the
same basis, more than twelve millions. Manifestly, if the
forces of the Right were to triumph, a new candidate must
be found, an outstanding personahty who could not only
steal votes from his opponents, but could rally to the Black-
White-Red standard that floating vote, whose unpredict-
able voice decides the issue in all elections.

Within the camp of the Nationahsts, among the Junkers
and the industriahsts and ex-officers, were “tumult and
affright”. The chances of half a dozen possible candidates
were canvassed and rejected. An Imperial Prince? No — ^no
member of the House of Hohenzollern could oppose Marx
with any hope of success. A general? Von Seeckt, the enig-
matic commander of the Reichswehr? Again no, for, though
he was the hero of Gorlice and the Rumanian campaigns, he
had exercised since then dictatorial powers in Saxony and
Bavaria, shedding the blood of Communists on the one hand,
and of Nazis on the other, and this was no recommendation
to the electorate. A great industriahst, such as Krupp
von Bohlen or Thyssen? Here again, no, for these men
were too representative of Big Business and all that that
implied.

A week of precious time went by in vain dispute.
Then came inspiration. As in a similar quandary at Coblenz
eleven years ago, the name of Hindenburg was proposed —
though this time by the name of Hindenburg and not of
Beneckendorfi — and as before it was received first with sur-
prised scepticism and then with general approval.

There had been some thought of his opposing Ebert for
the Presidency in 1920, when, with the formal inauguration
of the Constitution, it was suggested that the President,
who had only been elected by the National Assembly,
should seek re-election by popular vote. The Kapp putsch
had, however, put an end to any such proposal, and Ebert

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

257

tad been tastily confirmed in his office. Hindenburg him-
self tad never seriously considered the matter, and would
not, at that time, have been a desirable choice.^ Again, in
the selection of the ReichsbloJc candidate before the first
ballot in March 1925, the Landrat Winkler, the leader of the
Hanoverian delegates to the Nationalist party convention,
had proposed Hindenburg’s name, but had withdrawn the
suggestion in face of considerable opposition, both from the
German People’s Party and from his own. He had, however,
notified Jarres that he reserved full liberty of action if a
second ballot were necessary, and now his renewed proposal
of the Marshal as candidate was greeted with relief and
applause.

Of course the Nestor of Germany was the man; his
picture was in every house and on every schoolgirl’s
dressing-table. His dignified silence throughout the early
struggles of the Republic was in itself a strong recommenda-
tion, and the Hindenburg Legend was stiU strong in the
land. Moreover — ^but this was only whispered in the inner
circles of the party — ^was he not the Man of Spa, and must
he not redeem his name from the slur of having sent his
Emperor into exile, for which he had publicly admitted
the responsibility? His yearning after imperial yesterdays
was notorious, and his famous dictum of the “stab-in-the-
back” before the Committee of Enquiry was recalled with
satisfaction. Above all, was he not the Arch-slave of Duty?
Here was the man whose name would mobihze an army of

^ There is little doubt that, bad the Kapp putsch succeeded, Hinden-
burg would have been hustled into the Presidency to pave the way for
the Emperor’s return. In the course of a conversation on December 7,
1919, with the famous American journalist, Karl von Wiegand, Colonel
Bauer, who a few months later became one of the military leaders of the
putsch, said, “We intend to restore the monarchy on the English model,
and the election of Hindenburg would help us to that end”; and the
notorious Nationalist cleric, Pastor Traub, said of the Marshal only a
week before the putsch began, “He is not a man who would bar the way
to a future Kaiser; on the contrary, he would prepare it”.

258

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

voters and who, once selected, could be relied upon to make
an end of the detested and ignoble Weimar System.

But there were obstacles which must be overcome before
the Nationahsts could get their way. Their alhes of the
German People’s Party must first be “squared” and Jarres
eliminated, and there was always the probabihty that
Hindenburg would not stand. The German People’s Party
were not easily brought into fine. They were still resolved
to stand or fall by Jarres, and in this they were sup-
ported by Seldte and his ex-Service men’s organization,
the Stahlhelm. Stresemann was particularly opposed to the
candidature of Hindenburg, but not upon personal grounds.
Stresemann stiU retained that romantic admiration for the
Marshal which had led him to champion so fervently the
cause of the Supreme Command before the war-time
Reichstag. His conversion to the Pohcy of Fulfilment had
in no way dimmed his veneration for Germany’s greatest
pubhc figure. But three months before, in the greatest con-
fidence, he had opened the negotiations which ultimately
resulted in the Pact of Locarno, the first international
agreement to be freely negotiated by Germany. To speak of
it then would have meant death both for him and for his
project, for the extreme Nationahsts would not, and later
did not, shrink from plotting his assassination, and such
knowledge of the negotiations as had been made public
had provoked the fiercest opposition. Stresemann knew his
Europe weU enough to foresee how foreign countries would
react to the election of the incarnation of Prussian mih-
tarism, and a “war criminal” to boot, as President of the
Reich, and, great as was his admiration for Hindenburg,
still greater was his life’s ambition to free the Rhineland
from foreign occupation.

Passionately he exhorted Jarres not to withdraw in
favour of Hindenburg, advancing every argument which
might prevent such a disaster. The Marshal was too old and
too ignorant of pohtics. He would be the tool of the National-

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

269

ists and would be used to undo all the work of the past six
years; alternately, it was unjust that this great figure should
be exposed to the rough-and-tumble of an electoral contest
and to the venomous intrigues of political life. Under no
consideration must Jarres withdraw.

But Jarres was unable to resist the pressure of the
Nationahsts, and in any case he had little real desire to
exchange the minor problems of the city of Duisburg for
the gigantic tasks of the Presidency. He turned a deaf ear
to Stresemann’s pleadings, gracefully withdrew his name as
candidate of the Right, and returned thankfully to the
obscurity from which he had been dragged.

So far the Nationahsts had got their way, but their
greatest difihoulties were to come. Their first tentative
embassy to Hanover was met with a brusque, almost
ungracious refusal. Hindenburg was suffering from a form
of bronchial catarrh which would not yield to treatment,
and this made bim even more disinchned to re-enter pubhc
life. He had never been a party man, he said, and he had no
intention of becoming one now. He was shrewd enough to
suspect that this sudden and anxious appeal to him was
bemg made out of a desire to exploit him for party purposes.
The deputation withdrew disheartened. Others took their
place, but without any better success. Another week
went by and still Hindenburg was adamant. To all the
entreaties of Ditfurth, of Schiele, of Schlange, and of
Schmidt, he made the same reply: “Ich will meine RuJie
haben'\ “The devil take you all!” was his exasperated
dismissal of Schmidt. “I don’t min d if he does, so long as
we have you for ReichsprdsidentV’ was the reply.

His refusal became known in the press. The Nationahsts
were at their wits’ end. Only a fortnight remained imtil the
second ballot and they were still without a candidate.
Could nothing be done to break the Marshal’s resolution?
In desperation Winkler turned to G-rand-Admiral von
Tirpitz for advice and it was the crafty old sailor who

260

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

provided the solution. He had always beheved in Hinden-
bnrg, and, it will be remembered, as early as January 1916
had wished him to become mihtary and pohtical dictator of
Germany. Now his belief was coloured by a more intimate
knowledge of the Marshal’s mind, and he knew upon which
chord to harp with success. The Marshal’s chief objection,
he said, was to standing as a party candidate; this idea
therefore must be dropped. An appeal must be made to him
to go to the electorate, not in the Nationahst, but in the
National interest, and his sense of duty could not allow him
to refuse such a caU.

It was Tirpitz, with his tremolo voice and his long beard
flowing in a silver fork over his coat, who came to Hanover
to make the supreme appeal. He was a year younger than
Hindenburg, but half a century older in guile and pohtical
cunning, and he handled the Marshal with a master’s
technique. To every objection barked out in the harsh
mihtary voice, the Admiral made a soft-toned reply which
demohshed the Marshal’s arguments. Gradually Hindenburg
ceased to argue and sat hstening to Tirpitz’s brilhant
exposition of his case.

He quite understood, said the Admiral, the very natural
disinclination of the Marshal to stand as a party candidate,
but that was not the real issue at aU. This was no factional
fight but a national crusade. He depicted for the Marshal
the state of the country, and particularly the situation in
Prussia, and then added his irresistible call to duty. The
coxmtry was crying out for a “saviour” and in its need it
turned again to the great figure who had never forsaken it.
A great sacrifice was being asked of Hindenburg, no doubt;
his age and his distinguished record unquestionably en-
titled him to a peaceful retirement, but throughout that
long life had he not always looked upon subordination of
self to duty as the highest form of service? The Father-
land was calling to him to save it from national dis-
cord and foreign domination, the great mass of the

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

261

people looked to Mm for guidance. Could ke refuse their
appeal?

Thus Tirpitz in Ms silvery voice played upon the sensi-
Mlities of Hindenburg. He had caught the Marshal by his
sword-knot and had struck the one note of appeal which he
could never resist. But Tirpitz had Mdden from Hindenburg
the fact that the support wMch could be expected from the
electorate was not nearly so great, nor the demand of the
Fatherland so unammous, as he had depicted. He had not
mentioned the scruples of Stresemann or the opposition of
the Stahlhelm. He had led the Marshal to believe that if he
accepted the nomination he would meet with very little
opposition.

Hindenburg had been defimtely shaken by Tirpitz’s
eloquence. If the country really was in so bad a condition
and he was the only man who could save it, had he the right
to refuse? Devotion to duty was with him a fetish, service
a guidon wMch he had always followed. Yet there was Ms
loyalty to Ms Emperor, renewed publicly only three years
before. Again the clash of fealties, the hesitation, the choice
between right and right.

He had wavered from Ms former inflexibility, but he
would not give a defimte answer. He must, he said, have
three days to think it out. To-day was April 6? He would
give them Ms decision on the 9th.

But Tirpitz returned to Berhn well satisfied. He knew
Ms man and he knew that he had implanted in Ms mind
that seed of doubt wMch would blossom forth into the flower
of acceptance. For him there was little uncertainty as to
the answer wMch Hindenburg would give.

Nor was he wrong. For tMee days the Marshal pondered
Ms decision m Hanover. His election would mean a complete
break with Ms former traditions, he would become the
salaried servant of the Eepubhc and the cMef guardian of
its Constitution. Hitherto he had never pledged Mmself. A
brief note to Ebert from Spa, confirming the agreement

262

WBIMAE AND NEUDECK

made with Groner, was his only oflBcial connection with the
Weimar system. But now . . . ? There was his loyalty to his
Emperor. Had he not written in 1922 — and the letter had
appeared in the press — that he would “remain always Your
Imperial and Eoyal Majesty’s most loyal subject”? To be
sure, the Emperor had answered him somewhat ungraciously;
still, his declaration stood. But Germany? Germany was
calling for him. He had fought for her in war, he had served
her in the darkest hour of defeat, now he must answer again
the call to the service of peace. The pomp and panoply of the
Presidency meant nothing to him, no man abhorred civihan
display and ostentation more than Hindenburg. No man
was more lacking in personal ambition. Ear rather would
he have preferred to remain in peace at Hanover and
drink his glass of wine by the bank of the Leine. But
to the call to duty there could only be one answer. He
must serve.

He did not, as was widely reported, ask permission of
the Emperor to accept the candidature. He arrived at his
decision after deep personal reflection and consultation with
his family and closest friends. He would stand for the Pre-
sidency; if elected he would take the oath to the Constitu-
tion and would loyally defend it — until a further path of
service was opened before him. But when, on April 9, 1925,
he sent his answer to Berhn he had no other intention but
the loyal and honest fulfilment of the new task which, un-
wilhngly enough, he had agreed to undertake. Nothing,
however, could change his personal loyalty to his Emperor;
whatever his public views noight be, his personal behefs
would remain the same. Had not Ebert, though President,
remained a Sociahst? With this bahn he soothed his con-
science. It was the inevitable sequel to his frequent clashes
of loyalties — compromise, that compromise which Carlyle
has called the “grave of the soul”.

In the campaign which followed Hindenburg took httle
personal part. Much was promised in his name of which he

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

263

knew nothing, and he passed through experiences which
must have made him regret that he had ever agreed to
stand. The mud and vitriol of an election were all so new to
him, so aUen to his soldier’s notion of chivalry towards an
enemy. While he ignored with stoical calm the venomous
attacks of the opposition press upon himself, he was naively
appalled to find similar vdeness in the papers of the Reichs-
hlok concerning Marx. “I will not allow such things to he
said on my behaE”, he told his personal stafi. “I insist
upon my political opponents receiving fair play from my
supporters.” The stafi smiled a little cynically and promised
“to see to it”. The attacks on both sides continued.

Easter messages were issued to the electorate by both
candidates. Hindenburg attempted to strike a personal
note, but it was as empty as that of Marx; its chief interest
was his evident difhculty in successfully reconciling his
appearance as a candidate for the Presidency of a repubhc
with his well-known monarchist beliefs. He attempted to
eseape the issue by stressing the essentially non-party
character of the Presidency.

My life lies open to all the world [he declared]. I believe that in
time of need I have done my duty. If this duty were to bid me now
as President of the Reich to work withiu the articles of the Con-
stitution, without respect for party, persons, origin, or profession,
I shall not be found wanting. As a soldier I have always had the
whole nation before my eyes, and not its parties. Parties are necessary
in a parliamentary state, but the Chief of the State must stand
above them. . . . Just as the first German President, even as Pro-
tector of the Constitution, never concealed his origm from the ranks
of labour, no one will be able to expect of me that I should surrender
my political convictions.

In this way the curious mental process of compromise
was made pubhc. Ebert had been able to retain his
republican behefs whilst he was President of the Repubhc,
therefore, he, Handenburg, could remain personally a loyal
monarchist whilst filling the same office. It was an argument

264

WEIMAE AND NBUDECK

wliich was difficult to follow and betrayed more naivete
tban one would have credited to the Marshal.

His only other pubhc announcements were made at a
reception given to the German and foreign press, and a
radio-broadcast on the eve of the poll. The press reception
was a Bier-Abend and a very jolly afiair. Hindenburg was
in excellent form and greeted his guests with the words:
“I’ve asked you to come here, gentlemen, in order to show
you that I don’t come riding on a cannon nor yet in a bath-
chair. I know that you all want from me a statement on
foreign pohcy, but I can’t give it to you as I’m not yet
Reichsprdsident, and in any case the Chancellor is responsible
for the conduct of foreign pohcy and not the President.”

He answered an endless flood of questions with unfaihng
good-humour and a generous display of elephantine wit.
The questions themselves ranged from the general to the
personal, each inquirer vying with his neighbour as to how
much information he could squeeze out of the old veteran.
Most of them concerned peace and war, and the Marshal
rephed that he personally shared the opinion that Germany
could only gain from peaceful development at home and
abroad, and that he believed, as a mihtary expert, that
the country was incapable of defending itself against the
smallest of her neighbours.

“What was the greatest day of your hfe, Field-Marshal?”
somebody wanted to know, expecting as a reply some
grandiloquent reference to Tannenberg. “The first time,
when I was a cadet, that I was allowed to eat as many
cakes and as much whipped cream as I Hked”, was the
Marshal’s answer.

“How many decorations have you?” asked another.

“Seventy-seven”, was the reply; “one for each year of
my age, but I didn’t get one every year.”

The climax was reached when a French journalist asked
the Marshal to autograph a postcard which he proposed
to send as a greeting to Marshal Foch. Hindenburg lost his

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

265

laughing air. Instantly his thoughts went back to his un-
answered ofier of July 1919, and he repHed grimly, “That
gentleman has long since refused to know me, and I never
write to strangers”.

The broadcast address was not such a success. Hinden-
burg had never seen a microphone before, and was nervous
and embarrassed. He spoke somewhat haltingly and kept
time by beating with his clenched fist on the table before
him. To the listening public his voice came accompanied
by an obbligato of thumps, but as they strained their ears
they could hear him declaiming before all the world his
determination, born of personal experience in youth and
in old age, to avert the horrors of war. The rest was an
appeal for, and a promise of, unity at home and patriotic
behaviour, and both listeners and speaker seemed relieved
when the address was over. But, like many a man making
his first broadcast, Hindenburg, as soon as he had finished,
forgot his great unseen audience, and so it came about that
in thousands of German homes he was heard saying with
evident relief to the official beside him, “Well, thank God
that’s over”.

Throughout the rest of his life he never conquered his
dislike for the microphone, and when, later, it became
necessary for him as President to address the German
people by wireless, a phonograph record was made of his
speech and released at the appointed moment to the
hstening public, who fervently beheved that it was the
President himself who spoke to them.

Polhng-day, Sunday April 26, was spent by Hindenburg
at Gross-Schwulper, the estate of Oskar’s mother-in-law, the
Baroness von Marenholtz, near Brunswick. He was quite
untouched by the general excitement and passed the day
walking in the park and playing with his grandchildren.
About 9 o’clock in the evening the results began to come
in, and it was evident that the Marshal was not going to
have an easy victory. The towns, the strongholds of Social

266

WEIMAE AND NEUDBCK

Democracy and of the trade unions, were for the Weimar-
bloJc, and more than once during the evening Marx was
heading the poll. But the country districts, where the
great landowners could influence the choice of their
peasants, voted for Hindenhurg, and gradually his tally
began to mount.^ Even then he would not have been
successful were it not for the stirring-up of Protestant
feehng against the Catholic Marx in Prussia, Thuringia,
and Saxony, and in the country round Halle and Magde-
burg, where the Social Democrats and even the Communists
forsook their party allegiance and voted for Hindenburg.

At his usual hour of 10 o’clock the Marshal went un-
concernedly to bed, but his son Oskar sat up with paper
and pencil till a late hour beside the radio. By midnight it
was certain that the Marshal had been elected with a shght
margin of votes, and in the small hours of Monday morning
the final figures were announced;

Hindenburg . . 14,656,766

Marx . . . 13,751,615

Thalmann . . 1,931,151

It had been a very close thing, less than a milhon
majority, and no absolute majority at that; but they had
won nevertheless, and Oskar went to bed happy.

At 7 o’clock next morning he brought his father the
news of victory. “Well,” rephed the newly-elected President
testily, “why did you want to wake me up an hour earlier
to teU me? It would still have been true at eight”; and back
he went to sleep. On being called at his usual hour, he
awoke to a graver view of the position. His natural piety
was touched and he said very seriously: “May Grod bless

^ People voted for Hindenburg for a variety of reasons One Bavarian
peasant girl told ber friends that she had seen a picture of him “holding
a candle” and had given her vote for him because she thought he must
be a good Christian man. What she had actually seen was a photograph
of Hindenburg grasping his Pield-MarshaPs baton’

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

267

tke okoice of tke German people and make it a prosperous
one”.

Messages of congratulations poured in from all quarters,
and amongst tke first was a telegram from Marz offering to
kis victorious opponent kis loyal co-operation in tke future.
Hindenkurg was greatly toucked by tkis gesture, and re-
affirmed to kis staff kis firm intention to be strictly im-
partial. “I propose to bold out tke kand of fellowskip to my
late opponents as if tkey were my most trusted friends”,
ke declared; and ke certainly justified kis words in tke case
of Marx, for twice witkin tke next seven years ke called kim
to be Ckancellor.

Many others sent kim tkeir congratulations, and among
tkem was Franz von Papen, Catkolic nobleman, former
miktary attache in Washington, Herrenreiter, and deputy
for tke Centre Party in tke Prussian Landtag. Papen had
not at tkis stage reached that felicitous relationship with
tke Marshal which ke was later to enjoy, but ke was suf-
ficiently akve to future possibikties to desert tke cause of
kis party and kis party’s candidate, Marx, and to campaign
zealously for Hindenburg on tke grounds that the political
future of tke Centre Party was threatened if it alked itself
with tke Left in electing a President. He was successful in
drawing away a considerable number of Catkokc votes to
Hindenburg, and on tke latter’s victory ke telegraphed that
ke would not wish to be “missing from tke ranks of those
who offer tkeir thanks to tkeir great leader, who, at tkis
vital moment, has been wiUing to make sacrifices in order
to take tke fate of tke nation into kis trusted kand”. Papen
added that even as a Centre Party deputy ke had not ceased
to urge support for tke Marshal on tke principle of “tke
Fatherland above party”. With tkis move began that strange
relationship which continued unbroken for more than nine
years, until Hindenburg’s death. It was a comradeship so
wholly disastrous for Germany that it is tke more curious
to note that it was tke only friendship in Hindenburg’s fife

268 WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

that was not marred by any suggestion of treachery on his
part.

A host of visitors descended upon Hanover; the Chan-
cellor and other high State ofhcials, and the leaders and
artificers of the Reichsblok, all came to pay their respects
to the new Chief of State. Luther was agreeably surprised.
In discussing the arrangements for the inauguration
ceremony, he found Hindenburg most friendly and helpful,
and it was in this attitude that the Nationalists were to
receive the first of many shocks experienced dming the
coining months. It had been fully expected that Hinden-
burg, despite his campaign statements, would refuse to take
the oath to the Constitution and would not recognize the
Black-Gold-Red of the Reichsbanner, which had super-
seded the Schwarz-weiss-rot of Imperial Germany, as the
national colours. But, to the delighted surprise of the
Chancellor, the President-elect raised no objection either to
oath or to flag, merely stipulating that the form of oath
should not be civil but a religious one, taken upon the
Gospels.

Otto Meissner, too, called upon Hindenburg.

Few men, behind the scenes, have influenced the post-
war history of their country more than this seemingly
very typical square-headed German Civil Servant, and
the full story of the strange part which he played is
stiU to be written. Born in Alsace, the son of a German
immigrant and an Alsatian mother, Otto Meissner had
studied constitutional law, but had found employment
as a Civil Servant in the State Railways of the Reichsland.
His experience in this capacity led to his transfer during
the war to the Ukraine, where Groner was reorganizing the
railway system. Here Meissner met Rudolph Nadolny, who
became his immediate superior and whose fortunes he
followed during the troublous days of the Revolution.
Nadolny became secretary to Ebert at Weimar, and
Meissner was closely associated with him throughout that

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

269

period of tragedy. When the office of the President came to
be organized, Nadolny became Secretary of State, but
when, in 1920, he was appointed Ambassador to Angora,
his assistant, Meissner, succeeded him in his high office.

In that position, which, after fifteen years, he still occupies
(1936), he has swayed the policies of post-war Germany
to no little extent, and with considerable pohtical agihty
has succeeded in serving and pleasing three such diverse
personaUties as Ebert, Hindenburg, and Hitler! To call bim
a turncoat would be too drastic; to accuse him of pre-
meditated treachery would be unfair; but, doubtless with
the best possible intentions, he has provided in modern
times the most outstanding example of a pohtical Vicar of
Bray.

At this moment in 1925, however, Meissner came to
Hanover with certain apprehensions. The Nationahsts, who
were anxious to get rid of him as a representative of the
detested System, had let it be known that the new Presi-
dent, in exercising his right of appointment, would choose
as his Secretary of State, Lieut.-Col. von Eeldmann, an old
friend and a member of his former Staff who had been
chief of his election bureau in Hanover, and Meissner
approached the house in the Seelhorstrasse in uncertainty
as to his future.

But here again Hindenburg disappointed his followers.
He recognized in Meissner the man who, under Ebert, had
formulated and defined the office of the presidency which
the Weimar Constitution, itself drawn up in haste, had left
vague and undetermined. He realized that in the tasks
ahead of him Meissner’s vast knowledge and experience of
procedure and custom, and of the parhamentary routine, of
which he himself was ignorant, would be of greater service
to him than the pleasing companionship of the loyal Eeld-
marm, and he expressed his feelings in characteristic terms:
“When a heutenant becomes a company-commander he
keeps the old sergeant-major”. He therefore confirmed

T

270

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

Meissner in Lis office, and, in so doing, made a decision
whicL. was to be no less important in Lis life than Lis meeting
with Lndendorfi.

For Hindenburg’s third “Kfe” was to be very largely
influenced by his new “marriage” with. Meissner, a union
in which the latter, like Lndendorfi, held the role of the
dominant husband, and with very much the same efiect.
For, as Hindenburg had been malleable in Ludendorfi’s
hands, so was he in the hands of Meissner, upon whom he
leaned more and more with advancing years; and, similarly,
just as for the first period of their partnership Ludendorfi’s
influence over the Marshal had been for good rather than
otherwise, so in the early years of office Meissner guided the
feet of the President through the difficult paths of con-
stitutional government. The tragic sequels were also similar,
Ludendorfi, in the grip of megalomania, carried his chief,
perhaps unwillingly, into the seas of tortuous intrigue till
the inevitable shipwreck overwhelmed them both. Meissner,
perhaps unwittingly, allowed his imsuspecting leader to fall
into the hands of the Camarilla. Death saved Hindenburg
from a full realization of the truth.

And yet there had to be a Meissner, for, if Hindenburg
had been appointed as a figure-head in 1914, he was
infinitely more so in 1925. It was inevitable and essential
that some shadow-figure, some eminence grise, should stand
behind him and prompt his actions. The full portent of
their relationship was defined at that very moment with
terrifying accuracy of prophecy by Theodore Lessing.
“From the very moment when this least pohtical of men is
mis-cast for a pohtical role another will be the decisive
factor”, he wrote. “This man, through and through, is a
man of service; there are not even the beginnings of a
personahty capable of deciding, measuring and considering.
Here the sole essential will always be the instruction, the
tradition, the consensus that ‘one certainly must’ or ‘one
certainly must not’. ... He will remain the ‘good shepherd

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

271

and protector’ only so long as some clever man is ttere who
will interest him in his duties and arrange them for him. A
nature Hke Hindenburg’s will ask until he dies — ‘Where can
I serve?’ ... It may be said. ‘Better a zero than a Nero’.
Unfortunately, the course of history has shown that behind
a zero lurks always a future Nero.” ^

The ceremony of inauguration was arranged for May 12,
and the President-elect left Hanover the day before. His
way to Berlin was one continuous triumph. No Emperor or
King received such a welcome. The Biirgermeister Tramm
was at the station to bid him farewell, and with him Noske,
now President of the province of Hanover, the fiery revolu-
tionary of 1918 scarcely recognizable beneath the frock-coat
and top-hat of officialdom. At the capital it was the same,
cheering masses, rigid ranks of troops, the shriU cries of
children, and flowers everywhere. Twice before in his life
he had ridden victoriously through the Brandenburger Tor;
once in 1866 following the King of Prussia, and again in
1871 in the train of the German Emperor. It had been his
fond hope that he might be granted a third triumphal entry
with Wilhelm II, but this had been denied him. Instead, the
triumph was his own and, acclaimed as a sovereign, he
passed upon his way.

He slept that night in the palace of the Chancellor,
which he had not entered since the eve of Ludendorff’s
dismissal. Wh.at ghosts and memories were stored within
those rooms! The great bulk of Bismarck, whose life’s work
Hindenburg had helped unwittingly to shatter; his fellow
soldier Caprivi; Hohenlohe, the princely statesman; the
intriguing Bulow, whom he had tried with Ludendorff to
recall; the grey ghost of Bethmann HoUweg; the pathetic
figure of Michaelis, scuttling across the stage, the puppet

^ How truly the writer had foreseen the tragic course of events he
was to prove terribly in his own person, for no sooner had the “Hero”
appeared than Theodore Lessing was murdered by Nazi gunmen on
neutral Czechoslovak territory (September 1933).

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WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

of the Supreme Command; the grey-bearded shadow of the
senile and incapable Hertling; and Maz of Baden, that
transient, embarrassed phantom. Memories of dead and
hving thronged the palace, and one likes to think that the
spirit of Ebert revisited his old room and, brooding there a
while, a little apprehensively perhaps, over the great re-
cumbent figure of his successor, wished In'm good fortune
in the great tasks before him.

But, undisturbed by any recollection of the past, Hinden-
burg slept the exhausted sleep of the very old, and awoke
upon the threshold of his third official “fife”. The only
memory that was to haunt him till his death was that of
an exiled monarch, to whom he stiU pledged loyalty but
in whose place he now ruled. The spectre of Spa could not
have been far from tn'm that morning. “Nevertheless” — ^the
motto of his house — ^with a firm voice, in the ringing tones
of a Prussian officer, he took the oath before the assembled
Reichstag: “I swear by God, the Almighty and the All-
knowing, that I will devote my powers to the welfare of
the German people, increase its benefits, turn danger from
it, guard the Constitution and the Laws of the Reich, con-
scientiously fulfil my duties, and do justice towards every-
one, so help me God”.

3

Thus, at the age of seventy-eight, Hindenburg found him-
self embarking upon a new career of the elements of which
he was entirely ignorant and for which he, of all men, was
supremely unfitted by nature. No one was more essentially
non-pohtical in mind than Bindenburg, and his natural and
expressed aversion to pohtics made biTn tend more and more
to confide to other and less scrupulous hands the reins of
office which should not have left his own control.

This tendency to delegate authority was the more
important because of the powers conferred upon the
President by the Constitution. He was elected for seven

WEIMAE Airo NEUDECK

273

years — though, in 1925 no one expected that Hindenburg
would survive his term, let alone successfully weather a
second election — and represented the German people to
the world; alhances and treaties were concluded in his
name and he could nominate and dismiss the Chancellor,
and, on the latter’s advice, the Ministers of the Eeich.
The Constitution gave him authority to compel the Federal
States, if necessary by force of arms, to fulfil the obligations
incurred under the Constitution and the Laws of the Reich,
and he had power to suspend provisionally the funda-
mental liberties of the citizen, if in his opinion such action
was required for the maintenance of public law and order.

Ebert had wielded these powers with understanding and
discretion, and in creating them the Fathers of the Con-
stitution at Weimar had always envisaged the presidency
as being occupied by an experienced republican and
democrat, never by a military veteran with expressed
monarchist sympathies and no political knowledge. But
in this negative quahty he was highly representative of
the German people as a whole, who are among the least
politically minded in the world. That they elected Hiuden-
burg at all is an indication that they obeyed the dictates
of sentiment rather than of political sense, for a people
schooled in pohtics would not have elected a monarchist
who had never been anythiug else but a soldier to be the
head of a democracy. For the consequences of this strange
act on their part the German people must bear a share in
the responsibility.

In the Cabinet of Dr. Luther, which Hindenburg in-
herited from his predecessor, two personalities stood out as
representative of the only stable factors in the German
political world. Stresemann and Gessler, representing foreign
policy and the army, were destined to occupy their re-
spective Ministries, the one for six and the other for
eight years, during which time their policies remained
unchanged and directed towards the fulfilment of a certain

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WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

goal. In many respects these policies were at variance.
Stresemann songht by means of the Policy of Pulfilment
to assure peace in Europe and to secure the evacuation
of the Rbineland; G-essler’s policy was based almost
entirely on tbe negation of Erfullung. His ambition was to
bxiild up, within the specifications and restrictions of the
Treaty of Versailles, as efdcient and as weU-equipped a
Defence Force as possible, but parallel with these ofScial
activities ran the military rapprochement with the Soviet
Union, and the surreptitious encouragement, or at least
condoning, of such illegal organizations as the Black
Heichswehr.

It is characteristic of Hindenburg, and of the anomalous
conditions which prevailed in the Weimar Repubhc after
his election, that the pohcies of both Stresemann and
Gessler, in so far as he understood them, received his
approval, and the foundation and evolution of both were
factors of primary importance in his career.

Gustav Stresemann had begun his tenancy of the German
Foreign Office in September 1923, and had signahzed the
immediate change in the external pohcy of his country by
terminating the campaign of passive resistance, by which
Germany, at a ruinous cost to herself, had rendered sterile
the French invasion of the Ruhr. By so doing he took the
first step along the seemingly endless road to the realization
of his great ideal, the evacuation of the Rhineland by
Allied troops, an ideal which was the motive force of his
foreign policy. Less than a year later the negotiation of the
London Agreements, in August 1924, placed reparation
payments upon a business footing under the Dawes Plan,
based for the first time not merely upon AUied desires for
reparation but on Germany’s capacity to pay. Further
fruits of Stresemann’s pohcy were a forty-miLhon-pound
“Dawes Loan” to Germany and, in addition, a vast influx
of short-term credits given by private American and
British finance houses to German states and municipahties.

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK 275

Germany had become rehabilitated in the eyes of the
world, and international confidence in her economic and
financial probity had been restored.

The change in the external position of the country
enabled Stresemann to take a further step, which he had
meditated for long in his own mind and in confidential
conversations with the British Ambassador in Berlin, Lord
D’Abernon. With the departure from of6.ce of the first
Labour Government after the elections of October 1924,
it became evident that Great Britain would reject the
Geneva Protocol, that still-born child of the united
socialistic ideahsm of Mr. MacDonald and M. Herriot.
The moment had arrived when an alternative proposal,
more in tune with the British thesis of “special arrange-
ments to meet special needs”, might succeed where
the “umbrella” principle of the Protocol had failed, and,
greatly daring, in February 1926 Stresemann put forward
very tentatively, and with great secrecy, his plan for a
multilateral pact of security and guarantee in Western
Europe. Germany, he asserted, would be prepared to enter
with Great Britain, France, and Italy into a mutual
understanding not to go to war with one another, the
suggested substitute for the settlement of disputes being
the negotiation of arbitration and concihation treaties
between the contracting parties. More important still was
the additional statement that Germany was prepared to
accept a pact expressly guaranteeing the existing terri-
torial status [gegenwdrtiger Besitzstand) vis-d-vis France.

The importance and daring of this proposal are evident.
Despite the campaign of terror and assassination which had
been waged by the extreme Nationahsts against those
German statesmen who had attempted to reach an under-
standing with the Alhes, Stresemann was now offering not
only to renounce war with the former enemies of Germany,
but to recognize for all time the permanent separation of
Alsace-Lorraine from the Reich. Had not the strictest

276

WEIMAK AND NEUDECK

secrecy been preserved as to tbe terms of the offer, Lord
D’Abernon wrote in his diary, “there can be little question
that Stresemann would have been turned out of oflS.ce, and
there is a strong possibhty that he would have been assas-
sinated”.

But the secret was well kept, and Stresemann’s proposals
were received with reserved approval in London and Paris.
On two conditions — ^the inclusion of Belgium in the pact
and the willingness of Germany to enter the League of
Nations — Great Britain and Prance were prepared to treat
the German project as a basis of negotiation, and Strese-
mann willingly accepted their counter-proposals. Then, and
only then, did he feel suflSciently secure to make pubhc his
policy, and, as he had expected, a storm of obloquy and
execration broke over him. Stresemann’s contention that
his proposals involved for Prance the permanent abandon-
ment of a Prench frontier on the Rhine neither impressed
nor satisfied the Nationahsts. Por them this poKcy of
Fulfilment and Renunciation {Erfullung und Preisgabe) was
rank treachery. Not only would the proposed pact abandon
for ever Alsace-Lorraine to the French, but it would set the
seal of solemn re-aflfirmation upon the accursed Treaty of
Versailles. Stresemann must go; his policy meant only
further humiliation for Germany.

It was at this critical moment that Ebert died, and at one
stroke the German pohtical situation was thrown into the
melting-pot and Stresemann was robbed of his most powerful
supporter. With infinite difl&culty he concluded the agree-
ment with the Nationahsts for a ReichsbhJc, with his own
nominee, Jarres, as candidate, and it maybe understood how
bitterly disappointed he was when he found himself unable
to prevent Jarres from withdrawing in Hiudenburg’s favour
in the second ballot. Nor was he at fault in his forecast. Alhed
opinion was critical indeed of the Marshal’s nomination and
election. “Behind him”, wrote Le Temps, “are enhsted all
the forces of reaction and revenge, which hope that he will

WEIMA.E AND NEUDECK

277

hasten the day of Germany’s mihtary resurrection”; and the
Nation Beige tersely summed up the situation in a single
phrase, “aujourd’hui Hindenburg — domain le Kaiser”-,
while even The Times devoted a leading article to the
dangers of military leaders of democracies, drawing the
inevitable parallel with Marshal MacMahon.

But the Nationalists were overjoyed. With Hindenburg
elected they could scotch, once and for all, these scandalous
negotiations. The veteran of 1870 would never agree to the
permanent renunciation of Alsace-Lorraine. Here was an
additional reason for Hindenburg’ s candidature. But here
again the Marshal disappointed them.

An attack of angina pectoris, the result of weeks of
anxiety and nervous strain, prevented Stresemann from
accompanying the Chancellor on his visit to the President-
elect at Hanover, but Luther’s first act on his return to
Berlin was to go to the sick-room of the Foreign Minister.
With pleasure and surprise, he told Stresemann that where
he had looked for opposition and obstruction he had
encountered co-operation and understanding. What about
foreign policy? asked Stresemann. Hindenburg had re-
peated the stock views of the Nationalists against the
Security Pact and the League of Nations, Luther replied,
but he did not think that in the final analysis he would
make diflS.culties.

Stresemann’s first meeting with the new President
did not take place imtil May 19. A strange contrast they
must have made; the towering mass of Hrndenburg’s great
frame, still a little unaccustomed to presidential morning-
dress, beside Stresemann’s shorter figure, with its square,
heavy, bloated face, smooth pink cheeks, and little twink-
ling eyes. He was the personification of the caricature
German on the English music-hall stage, except for his
hands, which were small and white, delicate as a woman’s.
He too was agreeably surprised by the helpful attitude of
the Marshal. “He showed himself most objective,” Strese-

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WEIMAK AND NEUDECK

mann wote that night in his joninal, “and appeared to
understand the importance of our security proposals; and
the indignant cry of the NationaHsts, ‘Renounce Alsace-
Lorraine? Never!’ never passed his hps.” With regard to the
League of Nations Hindenhurg was more reserved, and
evidently viewed it with personal repugnance; but Strese-
mann was impressed with his anxiety to clear Germany
from the accusation of war-guilt, and, for his part, Hinden-
burg was dehghted to discover the steps which Stresemann
had already taken to combat this allegation.

So well did the interview proceed that, at its close,
Hindenburg turned to his Foreign Minister and demanded
brusquely: “If things are as you say, why are you always
so furiously attacked?” “I replied with some irony”, says
Stresemann, “that I had frequently asked myself that same
question!”

But though in principle a sense of understanding had
been estabhshed between the two, Hindenburg’s ignorance
of politics and diplomacy rendered it very hard for Strese-
mann to keep bim informed of the progress of negotiations,
and there must have been many moments when he longed
regretfully for the constructive criticism and support of
Ebert. On June 9 he records, “I find it extremely difficult
to discuss with bim [Hindenburg] complex questions of
foreign policy, because his grasp of the subject is very
limited”.

StiU, Stresemann was fortunate in having only Hinden-
buig’s ignorance and not his opposition to contend with,
for the NationaHsts brought every influence to bear upon
the President that was unfavourable to the Foreign Minister,
and saw to it that only statements critical of Stresemann
were laid upon the Presidential table. At this moment their
domination over Hindenburg was not, however, complete.
Oskar’s influence with his father had not yet reached that
fatal degree which it afterwards achieved; moreover, the
Palace Camarilla did not yet exist, and under Meissner’s

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

279

guidance the President maintained his support of Strese-
mann’s foreign pohcy.

Stresemann, his flanks secured, as it were, pressed forward
with his two parallel series of negotiations with the Alli ed
Powers, the flrst directly with Great Britain and France
regarding the pact of security; the second, with the Con-
ference of Ambassadors in reference to the final disarma-
ment of Germany and the evacuation of the first Rhineland
Zone. Gradually and with infinite difficulty the security
negotiations proceeded towards success. Stresemann agreed
to the French proposal that the East European Alhes of
France, Poland and Czechoslovakia, should be included
among the contracting parties, but refused Germany’s
acceptance of her frontiers with these two states as perma-
nent. The most he could concede was that Germany would
forgo the right to change these boundaries by armed force,
and with this France had to be satisfied. At long last, at the
Conference of Locarno in October 1925, the agreements were
initialled. Great Britain, France, and Italy agreed to sponsor
Germany’s nomination for membership of the League of
Nations and to a permanent seat on the Council, and
Stresemann wrung the additional concession from them
that the Locarno Agreements should mark the beginning
of the movement towards AlHed disarmament, to which,
by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the disarmament
of Germany was to be but a “prelude”.

In the parallel negotiations with the Conference of
Ambassadors, Stresemann had an equally uphill battle, and
it was here that his pohcy ran foul of that of Gessler and
the Reichswehx. Stresemann’s foreign policy had received a
great set-back when, in January 1926, the Conference of
Ambassadors had announced that, in view of the non-fulfil-
ment by Germany of the disarmament clauses of the Peace
Treaty, the Alhes could not proceed with the evacuation of
the First Rhineland Zone, which, according to Article 429,
should be completed at the end of five years. With Strese-

80

’\¥EIMAil AKD NEUDECK

nann’s assertion that the disarmament of Germany was
complete, a statement which was patently inaccurate, the
Inter-AUied Conomission of Control refused to agree, pro-
ducing documentary evidence in support of their contrary
view, and the Conference of Ambassadors chided Germany
with extreme acerbity for her breach of faith.

Throughout the year Stresemann sought every means, on
the one hand, of urging the Reichswehr to give no grounds
for further complaint, and, on the other, of convincing the
Alhes of the complete compliance of Germany with aU the
mihtary and naval clauses of the Treaty. Under the mellow-
ing influence of the security negotiations, the Allied attitude
became less formidable, and by the time the Locarno
Agreements were initialled, it was possible to announce that
the evacuation of the First Rhineland Zone would begin
with the ceremony of signature in December. “In thus
making the beginning of the evacuation coincide with the
signature of the Locarno Agreements,” wrote Briand to
Stresemann, “the Conference [of Ambassadors] expresses
the confidence of the Governments represented upon it that
the signature will inaugurate a new era in their relations
with Germany.”

Hindenburg’s first year in ofiS.ce closed ia a blaze of glory.
The achievement was Stresemann’s, but it was not without
a bitter struggle. The Nationalists, having thrown every
obstacle in the way of the negotiations, made a final desper-
ate efEort to prevent the ratification of the Locarno Agree-
ments. Stresemann, on his return to Berlin from Locarno,
had to leave the train some distance outside the city, reach-
ing his house by devious ways and under pohce protection.
Vile and stupid stories were spread about him; he was paid
by the French — ^his wife, it was said, was the sister of Mme.
Poincare, just as once it had been rumoured that Rathenau’s
sister had married Radek — and the press was vindictive as
only the press of Germany can be. “If the Cabinet has
agreed that Stresemann should state his views on Locarno

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

281

before the Eeichstag Committee on Foreign Affairs, it is
merely allowing him the right of defence conceded to any
murderer or similarly unprofitable member of society,
though there are many members of our party who regard
Stresemann as something worse than a murderer”, wrote
Colonel von Rodenberg in the Nationahst Preussische
Landeszeitung.

Within the Cabinet the Nationahst members attacked the
Foreign Minister fiercely and threatened to withdraw alto-
gether from the Government, if it persisted in supporting
Stresemann’s policy of treachery and renunciation. But
here help came from a source whence it would least have
been expected. Hard-headed old Gessler fought beside
Stresemann in this moment and added his bitter irony to
the latter’s eloquence. “Renunciation?” he drawled iu his
slow Bavarian voice, at one Cabinet meetiug. “You can’t
call it renunciation when a one-legged man is asked to give
up dancing competitions!”

Throughout these days of crisis Hindenburg stood solidly
behind Stresemann. Despite the frenzied efforts of the
Nationahsts to persuade him not to sign the bill of ratifica-
tion, and to force Stresemann to resign, he hstened to the
wiser counsel of Meissner — “Germany must not and cannot
pursue any other foreign policy” — and gave the Chancellor
and the Foreign Minister every necessary support. The
Nationahsts were at last disillusioned. The hopes which they
had built upon Hiudenburg’s election had been shattered
one by one, and they cordd now only make good their threat
of withdrawing from the Government and leave Stresemann
in possession of the field. “We had dreamed that Hinden-
bujg, turning his marvellous popularity to account, would
dissolve the Reichstag and appeal to the nation”, wrote
old General Litzmann, his contemporary and former com-
rade-in-arms, in bitter disappointment. “Then he would
have won an even greater victory than at Tannenberg.”

But at last the treaties were signed and ratified, and by

282

WEIMAH AND NEUDECK

tlie end of Ja,nuary 1926, th.e last Britisli soldier had left the
First Rhineland Zone. In March, Hindenbnrg made a
triumphal entry into the hberated city of Cologne. Great
were the rejoicings, and splendid the celebrations of free-
dom. Cologne was enfete to do honour to its veteran Presi-
dent, the legendary hero of Germany, who had led it out of
captivity. Immense festivals were planned in his honour,
torchlight processions turned night into day, and the
strains of DeutschlaTid iiber Alles were heard everywhere.
The President made a number of addresses, notably one in
the great Messehalle before a huge concourse of people, and
all remarkable for their tact and moderation. But one thing
mars the record of the festivities. Hindenburg again dis-
played that curious negative vanity which had enabled
him to accept, for four years of war, the credit and honour
that were due — at least in major part — to Ludendorfi.
Throughout the triumph of his tour, he took to himself the
plaudits of the crowd, and never once in his addresses saw
fit to pay tribute to Stresemann, who had achieved all and
who was slowly giving his life for the hberation of the
Rhineland. How differently had Blucher behaved towards
Gneisenau, letting no opportunity escape to bear testimony
to the work of his heutenant. This weakness in Hinden-
burg’s character was complementary to his fear of re-
sponsibiUty. Where was praise, there he gathered it to him-
self, but in moments of great trial, such as at Spa and at
Kolberg, he was found wanting.

At the moment when Hindenburg was passing in triumph
through the hberated First Zone, Stresemann was facing a
serious rebuff at Geneva. A special Assembly of the League
of Nations had been convened for the admission of Germany,
and the stage was set for the logical sequel to Locarno. And
then came the anti-chmax! In guaranteeing a permanent
seat on the Council to Germany, the Great Powers had
promised more than they could f ulfil . Within the League
there was equahty of vote, and no bloc, however powerful its

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

283

naembers, could dispose of Council seats thus Ughtly. Other
claims were advanced and a deadlock ensued. For ten days
Stresemann and the German delegation waited Uke shiver-
ing neophytes without the portals of the Assembly, the
involuntary and disgusted observers of the humiliating
paralysis of the League.

It seemed as if fate had at last deserted Stresemann and
espoused the cause of the Nationalists, who clamoured for
his withdrawal from Geneva. “Withdraw! withdraw!” they
demanded, seeing therein a last means of sabotaging the
Locarno poHcy. Here was presented to Stresemann an
opportunity to regain much of the popularity and the
support which he had lost. To leave Geneva now and return
to Berlin would have meant a royal welcome, and the
certainty of a Reichstag majority, but for what? The work
of Locarno would have been destroyed, and Germany
would have returned to the poHcy of Obstinate Resistance.
The high courage and great statesmanship of Stresemarmwas
proof against such a temptation. “The triumph is too cheap
for me”, he rephed to Emil Ludwig, who urged upon bim
the necessity of withdrawing. A new spirit had been born at
Locarno, a spirit of mutual respect and trust, and Strese-
mann stood by his fellow artificers in this moment of their
common hmniliation. His loyalty was rewarded. When he
did leave Geneva on March 16, it was with the renewed
respect and heightened admiration of all parties, and with
the profound assurance that, when the Assembly met again
in September, a solution would have been found.

Throughout this crisis, as before, Luther and Stresemann
received the firm support of Hindenburg. The most ex-
perienced republican Chief of State could not have behaved
more irreproachably than did the Marshal in these days of
difficulty. Unobtrusive, he took no part in the pubhc con-
flict, but, acting as ever under the spur of Meissner, he gave
encouragement at the critical moments when it was most
needed. His greatest critics cannot reproach bim for the

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

correctness of his attitude towards his Foreign Minister at
this moment.

But Stresemann could not entirely escape the con-
sequence of the Geneva fiasco. On his return he had to
yield to the demands of the Nationalists and the Reichswehr
in signing the treaty of neutrality and non-aggression with
the Soviet Union. No sense of pique provoked this new
diplomatic departure, but the sheer necessity of concihating
his political opponents. The rapprochement with the Soviet
Union had never been a tenet of Stresemann’s policy, it
belonged to the policy of the Reichswehr, who needed Soviet
assistance in their endeavours to evade the military pro-
visions of the Peace Treaty. That strange Bolshevik haison
which began in 1920 and only ended with the advent of
Hitler — ^when military evasion was no longer necessary—
was dictated throughout from the Bendlerstrasse and not
from the Wilhelmstrasse, though there in Maltzan, and in
Brockdorfi-Rantzau at Moscow, were found wilHng col-
laborators.

In the years that followed, Stresemann’s faihng strength
was devoted unflaggingly to every means which might
complete the evacuation of the Rhineland and re-establish
Germany as a world power in the new community of nations.
As his health declined, it became a race with death, and
the increasing tempo of the contest inevitably affected his
judgment unfavourably. The record of his efforts was one
of set-backs and advances. The fina l admission of Germany
to the League was followed by the mirage of Thoiry, when
Briand’s eloquence opened before Stresemann’s eyes a vision
of Franco-German co-operation for the peace of Europe.
There followed disillusionment and momentary despair. The
reappearance of Poincare revived bitter memories of the
Ruhr and of Versailles. But still the efforts were not relaxed,
no opportunity was neglected.

The immediate acceptance by Germany of the Rellogg-
Briand Pact was a strategic success of the first water, and

WJKiMAR AND NEUDECK

285

for its signature Stresemann came, witli the shadow of
death already on his face, as the first German Foreign
Minister to enter Paris since 1870.

And ever behind him stood Hindenburg in strong support.
Chancellors came and went, the victims of internal pohcy,
but each retained Stresemann in office, and the President
remained a rock upon which he could lean in moments when
the struggle with his enemies and with his fate threatened
to overwhelm him. This continued support of Stresemann,
in season and out, for five years, is among the highest
achievements of Hindenburg’s pohtical career. Admittedly
the impetus came from Meissner, but, as Hindenburg had
been absorbed into Ludendorff’s personahty in war, so was
he dominated by Meissner in peace. The tragedy came in
each case with a change in the character of the dominant
partner, when the wax of Hindenburg’s personahty bore the
imprint of intrigue in place of statesmanship.

There came inevitably the last round in Stresemann’s
losing fight with death. It had never been beheved that he
would return from Paris ahve. Those who met him there, of
whom the writer was one, were shocked at the livid greyness
of his face, and the weary effort of every movement. But he
raUied under the stimulus of necessity and opened his last
struggle with France for the evacuation of the Rhineland,
and a final settlement of reparation payments. The French
demanded an Eastern Locarno as the price of evacuation.
Stresemann refused. The Young Committee dragged out its
weary sessions, fraught in themselves with the drama of
death, and produced its report in June 1929. In August the
statesmen met at the Hague to consider its adoption.

Stresemann was conserving the last particle of his strength
now, but his judgment and will-power were weakening.
Did he really believe that Germany could meet the heavy
obhgations imposed by the Young Plan? Should he have
accepted these new burdens on behalf of his country with
that whisper of uncertainty in his mind? Within his grasp

V

286

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

was tlie final realization of tlie goal toward wMcli his whole
pohcy of seven years had been directed. It was the price of
his acceptance, and he had no more strength to fight.
Perhaps against his better judgment he accepted the Young
Plan, and on August 29, with a joyful heart, put his signa-
ture to the Agreement for the Evacuation of the Second and
Third Rhineland Zones. It was the last of that series of
documents with which he had raised Germany from the
position of a pariah to the dignity of a world Power. Six
weeks later he was dead.

4

“We shall wait in vain for the awakening in our country
of that pubhc spirit which the Enghsh and the French and
other peoples possess, if we do not imitate them in setting
for our mili tary leaders certain bounds and limitations
which they must not disregard.” When Baron vom Stein
wrote these words over a hundred years ago, the new
mihtary machine with which Gneisenau and Scharnhorst
had evaded the mili tary provisions of the Treaty of Tilsit
and had greatly contributed to the overthrow of Napoleon,
was making its bid for the pohtical domination in Prussia.
Though, since the days of Frederick the Great, the in-
fluence of the Prussian army had been strong, it was not
until the forerunner of the German Great General Stafi was
created in 1807 that it reached that unassailable position
which, with two intervals, it has continued to occupy until
the present day.

The great mihtary leaders of the Liberation period,
Bliicher, Gneisenau, and Scharnhorst, though sharing
different views on foreign pohcy, loyally supported
Stein and Hardenberg in their pohcy of reform, and, with
them, fought the opposition of the vacillating monarch,
Frederick WiUiam III; yet Stein was aware of the danger
to the monarchy and Government if the control of the

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

287

military machine should at some future time fall into less
scrupulous hands than those of his colleagues.

It was for this reason that he sought to confine the posi-
tion of the army within certain bounds and limitations — ^the
army having captured the nebulous and “woolly” patriot-
ism generated by the activities of the Tugenhund', and there
was a danger that a dominant school of thought would
arise, convinced that true patriotism could only be ex-
pressed through the medium of mihtarism.

At one moment only in the later history of Royal Prussia
did the civil Government and the army preserve the de-
limitation of their respective functions. Under Wilhelm I,
the Chancellor, the Minister of War, and the Chief of the
General Staff worked together in harmonious accord, and
it was assumed that when Bismarck, Roon, and Moltke
were agreed upon a policy, the agreement of the King would
also be forthcoming.

This close collaboration, though it spelt destruction for
the enemies of Prussia, raised that country from the status
of a titular vassal of Austria to that of 'primus inter pares
among the German states, and finally to the controlling
position of Imperial power. The four worked together as
colleagues and not as rivals, and it is impossible, for ex-
ample, to conceive of any of the three Ministers treating the
old King with that frank brutality which on occasion the
Supreme Command and even the Chancellor meted out to
his grandson. It was for the army to win victories, the
Chancellor to govern, and the King to rule, and during
this period each performed his function with excellent
results.

This was the fiLrst exception to the rule of the domination
of the army. The second was that brief period in 1918-
1919, when the military caste were discredited, the authority
of the generals ineffective, and the army in a state of dis-
integration. Deprived of its Emperor, the army had lost the
symbol to which its singular loyalty had always been

288

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

pledged. Its leadersliip was in the dust, it owed allegiance
to no man, and its power and numbers had been shattered
by defeat and the crushing terms of the Armistice. It was
within the power of German Social Democracy at that time
to confine the military leadership of Germany within the
bounds which Stein had sought so zealously to impose a
hundred years before; that it failed to do so was due partly
to its own ineptitude, partly to the skill of the mihtary
caste, and partly to the insistence of the Alhed Powers on
such humiUating mihtary clauses in the Treaty of Peace
that it became incumbent upon every German soldier to
encompass their evasion.

It is recorded that a German statesman enquired of an
American acquaintance visiting Berhn soon after the Armis-
tice, what sort of terms Germany might expect. “Mihtary
terms”, was the reply. “But what about Wilson?” “In spite
of Wilson”, said the American sadly. “Thank God,” ex-
claimed the German, “for in that case we shah overcome
the revolution and secure our national freedom so much
sooner!”

He was right. Under a milder treaty the democratic
German Repubhc might have continued to flourish instead
of langm'shiTi g in agony for fourteen years. The harsh terms
of the Treaty of VersaiUes made reaction inevitable, and
played into the hands of the waiting mihtarists.

By the end of 1919, the army which Hindenburg and
Groner had brought home from Prance had been reduced
to the figure prescribed by the terms of the Armistice. The
chaotic condition of the country made it impossible for
those demobilized to be absorbed into civilian life and they
swelled the ranks of the starving unemployed, roaming the
country in bands and ripe for any mischief. From these
grew up the Free Corps, those privately owned and organ-
ized armies formed to protect the Eastern Frontier against
the depredations of the Poles, to crush the incipient Com-
munist risings which threatened in many parts of the

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

289

country, and to keep alive some semblance of the old
military spirit.

Meanwhile such of the Old Army officers as could bring
themselves to follow the example of Hindenburg and
Grbner, and co-operate with, rather than serve, the Eepubhc,
grouped themselves round the Minister of Defence, Noske,
and convinced him of the necessity of building up a strong
force from the stable elements which remained of the Im-
perial army. There were men amongst the Social Democrats
and the Centre who foresaw the danger of this move, and
urged passionately that the new army should be a purely
republican guard and not a force drawn from elements
essentially antagonistic to the Weimar regime.

Noske’ s view, however, prevailed; when the new
Eeichswehr was constituted it was largely recruited from
members of the Free Corps and volunteers who had seen
war service, and with this force the second Spartacist
Eevolt of March 1919 was effectively crushed. This feat
earned the respect of Hindenburg and Groner, and the
latter used his influence with Ebert to have Seeckt, by
far the ablest of Germany’s executive officers, appointed
General Commanding the new army.

A strange man, Hans von Seeckt; at first glance a typical
Prussian officer, with his thin, red turkey-neck, surmoimted
by an inscrutable face and the inevitable monocle. Just
another general, one thought, as he entered a room, and
that impression remained until he took his hands from
behind his back, and one was amazed at their beauty.
Long, thin, artistic, they might have belonged to Benvenuto
CeUini or to Chopin. Not a soldier’s hands, and no one who
possessed them could be an ordinary soldier. Seeckt was
not. He was a genius; a genius at making bricks without
straw, and at fashioning a mihtary machine, nominally
within the restrictions of the Peace Treaty, which struck
admiration and apprehension iato the heart of every General
Staff in Europe.

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WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

But the danger of creating the new army from the old
soon became apparent. It was one thing to crush a Com-
munist revolt, but a very different one to operate
against the remainder of the Free Corps and Old Army
troops under Liittwitz, who joined the Kapp putsch.
“There can be no question of setting the Eeichswehr to fight
these people”, Seeckt declared to Noske. “Would you force a
battle at the Brandenburger Tor between troops who a year
and a half ago were fighting shoulder to shoulder against
the enemy?” The Kapp putsch was defeated by the general
strike of the trades unions and the threat of a march on
Berlin by bands of armed workers. Throughout that fateful
week the Eeichswehr preserved a silent and, in some cases,
a very benevolent neutrality.^ It was not a very meritorious
episode in its history.

In the reconstruction of the Government which followed
the putsch, Noske retired to Hanover as Provincial Presi-
dent, to be succeeded by Gessler, and Groner entered the
Cabinet as Minister of Eailways. The Government had not
felt strong enough to make an example of Seeckt for his
conduct; indeed they could not afford to lose him, and with
the support of Gessler and Groner, he proceeded to perfect
his reorganization.

It was no ordinary army that he succeeded in creating.
In the rank and file the worker element was excluded, and
recruits were accepted mainly from the agricultural
districts. By his own example and influence Seeckt broke

1 In some localities, principally in Prussia, tie troop commanders
openly sided witli Kapp and Liittwitz. There were, however, notable
exceptions. Colonel von Hammerstein, who had married Luttwitz’s
daughter, was ordered by his father-in-law to be with his troops at a
certain place. He refused and was placed under arrest in his own head-
quarters. On the failure of the 'putsch, when Kapp fled, Hammerstein
was released and promptly arrested his father-in-law, holding him until
the order arrived from Seeckt for his release, as it had been decided that
the military leaders, Liittwitz, Erhardt, Bauer, and Pabst, should be
allowed to escape.

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

291

down tlie prejudice wldch. many of Ms old comrades felt
towards a “professional” army and persuaded members of
tbe nobility and the military caste to become officers. For
tMs remarkable army of one hundred thousand men it was
found necessary to have a ministerial staff of three hundred
officers and six himdred and seventy staff officers — and tMs
despite the fact that under the Peace Treaty the German
Great General Staff had been declared dissolved and its
reconstruction illegal — and in addition there were fifty-five
generals. The eighteen regiments of cavalry prescribed by
the treaty were commanded by three generals of divisions
and Mne mspectors with the rank of general, and forty-two
thousand horses were required for them. One hundred and
twenty-tMee colonels appeared in the Army List, of wMch
twenty-three were in the Reichswehr Mmistry, and in 1926
the military budget amounted to 776-6 milhon marks.

In proportion to its size it was the most expensive army
in the world, and the ratio in numbers of officers to men
suggests more the army of one of the smaller Latin American
republics. Actually, of course, the whole orgamzation was
based on the possibility of rapid expansion, in which case
every man of the hundred thousand would be a potential
non-conomissioned officer. In furtherance of tMs theory each
battalion of the Beichswehr retained the “tradition” of one
of the regiments of the Old Imperial Army, and wMle tMs
system kept alive the old military spirit, it also had the
added advantage of providing the nucleus for immediate
expansion shordd the necessity and opportumty arise.

By the Constitution the President was ex officio Com-
mander-m-CMef of all the armed forces of the Reich, but
tmder Ebert there were never any illusions on tMs point.
Seeckt had created the Reichswehr and it was loyal to bim
alone. All civilian influence had been completely excluded,
and when the Government wanted to use the army for its
own defence it had first to ask the permission of the General
Officer Commanding. “Wfll the Reichswehr stick to us,

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General?” asked Stresemann of Seeckt, at tke Cabinet
meeting summoned so tastily in the small hours of that
November morning when the news of Hitler’s rising arrived
from Munich; and Seeckt, who alone of those around the
table seemed to be collected and composed, replied with
his sphinx-like smile, “The Keichswehr, Eerr Reichs-
hanzler, will stick to me”.

With the election of Hindenburg to the presidency all
this changed. A Field-Marshal was a very different chief from
a Socialist trade-union leader, and immediately the army
pledged its loyalty to the Marshal, not in his capacity as
President, but as its Commander-in-Chief. In this it was
merely reverting to type. Under the Empire the army had
owed allegiance only to the Emperor, and Hindenburg had
assumed the position as Chief of State which the Emperor
had once occupied. Besides, was he not their old commander?
The older soldiers had served under him in the war, and the
younger had imbibed from them and from their fathers and
brothers the glories of the Hindenburg Legend.

In his person, therefore, Hindenburg wedded the army to
the republic, and whilst he remained President nothing
could shake this loyalty. Every attempt by Hitler, both
before and after he became Chancellor, to seduce the Reichs-
wehr from its personal allegiance to the President met with
ignominious failuxe, and it was not till after Hindenburg’s
death that he was able to exact from them an oath of fealty.

The army of which Hindenburg found himself Com-
mander-in-Chief in 1925 resembled its Imperial predecessor
in one particular respect. It was above politics, because it
dominated them. With zealous care it had been removed
from pohtical control and no disruptive influences existed
within its ranks. It never played politics, but no govern-
ment could stand a week without its support. In the words
of Groner; “The Reichswehx had become a factor which no
one could pass over in pohtical decisions”.

This situation appealed enormously to Hindenburg.

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

293

Lord D’Abernon Lad summed up his reaction exactly when
he recorded the thought, “The President — essentially a
soldier — instinctively distrusts anything hut force”. And
while he tolerated and supported Stresemann’s policy of
diplomatic rapprochement, he lent a more wilhng assistance
to the pohcies of the Eeichswehr.

Of these the most important was the haison with the
Soviet Union. This was the child of Seeckt, and one of the
most remarkable anomahes of the Weimar period was this
close relationship between the German and Soviet General
Staffs. In the days immediately following the war, the mili-
tary leaders of Germany were sharply divided on the
Bolshevik issue. Hoffmann, who had been an eye-witness of
the Revolution and knew too well the devastating effects
of Bolshevik propaganda upon his own troops, regarded
Moscow as the root of all evil, and advocated the sinking of
differences between Germany and the Allies in a crusade
against the common enemy. The possible results of this
pohcy are worth consideration, for, had Germany been
allowed to exploit Russia from the outset, it is improbable
that she would have reached that state of desperation
which made National Socialism an inevitable evil. Groner,
also, had seen Bolshevism at first hand during his service in
the Ukraine in 1918, and he viewed both it and its works
with fear and repugnance.

Seeckt too had served on the Eastern Front — ^was he not
the hero of the break-through at Gorhce, for which Falken-
hayn took the credit? — but he had fought the Imperial
Russian armies and not the Bolsheviks. He knew the
Russians to be good fighters, whether they were well or
badly led, and saw in the new Red Army something which,
properly handled, could be made a valuable instrument for
his policy. Germany, he argued, had been virtually ostra-
cized from the European society of nations and must needs
therefore consort with the other outlaw state, the Soviet
Union. Moreover the U.S.S.R. was the one state friendly to

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WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

Germany and unfettered by tbe Treaty of Versailles, which
possessed full liberty of manufacture and use of those
categories of weapons and military equipment which the
Peace Treaties forbade to the Keichswehr. On the other hand,
the Red Army only lacked that training and disciphne which
German instructors could impart to make it a very con-
siderable factor in Germany’s future poUoy. Admittedly the
Soviet Union was a dangerous ally, but she was better at
that juncture than no ally at all.

This haison with the Red General Staff became the key-
note of Seeckt’s pohcy almost from the first moment of his
assuming command of the Reichswehr, and was formally
emmciated to his stafi and collaborators in February 1920
during the outcry against the surrender to the Allies of the
Emperor and the other “war criminals”. Seeckt informed his
heutenants that, if the Government consented to surrender
the old heads of the army, the Reichswehr must oppose it by
every means in its power, even if such opposition entailed
the reopening of hostilities with the Alhes. In this case the
troops in the West would retire fighting, step by step, behind
the line of the Weser or the Elbe where defensive positions
would already have been prepared, but in the East they
would launch an offensive across Poland, join hands with
the Red Army, and, having crushed the Poles, would
march westwards to meet the French and British.

These desperate measures of Seeckt’s never materiahzed,
but in them lay the germ of the threatened “Red Army on
the Rhine” with which the Reichswehr were to make such
great play in future years. Moreover, Seeckt found in
Maltzan, the head of the Eastern Department of the
Foreign Office, a ready aUy. Between them they so worked
upon Rathenau that the Treaty of Rapallo, signed with the
Soviet Union during the Genoa Conference of 1922, set the
official seal upon the unofficial relations which had already
existed between the two general staffs. The treaty was com-
plemented by a secret military agreement which enabled

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

295

Seeckt to send each, year to Russia a certain number of
officers to act as instructors for the Red Army, and a further
number to gain all the experience they could in the handhng
of heavy artillery, tanks, armoured cars, and other weapons
forbidden to Germany.

The Nationahsts warmly supported Seeokt’s policy as an
alternative and corrective to Stresemann’s policy of con-
ciUation, and Count BrockdorfE-Rantzau, the first German
Ambassador in Moscow since Mirbach’s assassination in
1918, was amongst the most able and fierce opponents of
Locarno. The great triumph of this school of thought was
when, after the fiasco at Geneva in March 1926, Stresemann
was compelled by expediency to yield to their demands
and conclude with Moscow the treaty of neutrality and
non-aggression.

This, then, was the extraordinary state of affairs with
which Hindenburg found himself confronted on assuming
office as President and Commander-in-Chief. In the sphere
of foreign policy a tug-of-war was in progress; Stresemann,
supported by the Social-Democrats, the Centre, and his
own People’s Party (though he never knew at what moment
his own followers would stab him in the back), was seeking
by means of the Pohcy of Fulfilment to restore Germany’s
position as a Great Power by peaceful and conciliatory
means, whilst the army, supported by an unnatural aUiance
of the Nationalists and the Communists, sought, by evading
the disarmament clauses of the Treaty and by a military
xmderstanding with the Bolsheviks, to prepare for that
day when Germany should feel herself sufficiently strong
and recovered from defeat to assume by her own act her
former position as a Great Power.

Hindenburg’s natural proclivities led him to support the
army, but, like Hoffmann, he feared Bolshevism, and was
greatly relieved when, during his first interview with
Stresemann, he was assured that no aUiance between
Germany and the Soviet Union existed. Meissner’s influence,

296

WBIMAE AND NEUDECK

and Ms own genuine desire to fulfil his constitutional
duties, caused Mm to back Stresemann, even in tbe teetb
of Nationalist opposition, but little by little he drifted
back into the military fold, thanks to the zealous care and
intrigue of a certain individual in the Reichswehr Mimstry.

For, when in 1925 Hindenburg reappeared as the tete
d’armee, the real force beMnd the Reichswehr was virtually
unknown. It was not Seeckt, nor Groner, nor Gessler, but a
group of young stafi officers, disciples of Groner. Some of
them were no more officially on active service, but they
were aU strongly united in their pohtical views by reason
of their common experience during and after the war. At
the same time, and for the same reason, they were in close
touch with younger politicians in difierent parties, and
these more or less secret relations had in fact a continuous
and very great influence upon German internal affairs. In
tMs group was a young staff colonel who occupied a httle
room in the Mimstry overlooking the Landwehr Canal. Kurt
von Schleicher, the son of an old Brandenburg family and
a hereditary member of the military caste, had begun Ms
mili tary career in 1900 as a subaltern in Hindenburg’s old
regiment, the Third Foot Guards, and had there formed a
close friendsMp with Oskar. For tMs reason he had been a
frequent visitor at the flat in the Holzgraben during Hinden-
burg’s first retirement in Hanover, where his natural charm
and wit, in addition to Ms excellent quahties as a soldier,
soon made bim a favourite with the old General. While
Oskar remained with Ms regiment, Kurt had designs on
the staff. At the Kriegsakademie he had attracted the
attention of Groner, who considered him, with Willisen
and Hammerstein, among Ms most brilhant pupils, and,
when Groner was appointed to the Transport Section of the
General Staff, he had Schleicher transferred to Ms depart-
ment. Except for a brief period of service on the Eastern
Front, after the Armistice of Brest-Litovsk, during wMch
he was awarded the Iron Cross, Schleicher’s record through-

WEIMAR AND NBUDECK

297

out the war was that of a Schreibtischoffizier (an “ofhce”
soldier), and he discharged his duties with great eflS.ciency.
With no doubts as to his own capabihties, he let no
opportunity slip — and there were very many at General
Headquarters — to make acquaintance with the great ones
who surrounded him, and the witty young dandy became
an essential figure in many important circles.

He had never been a favourite of LudendorS’s, however,
and Groner’s succession to the post of First Quartermaster-
General was a stroke of luck for him. For his old chief
plucked Schleicher, now a major, from his duties in the
Press Department of General Headquarters and made him
his personal, adjutant. In this capacity he was present at
the momentous interview with Hindenburg on the morning
of November 10, and added his voice to Groner’s in per-
suadiug the Marshal to support the existing Government
in Berlin simply because it was a government. Together
they weathered the trials and depression of the Revolution.
These days, though dark, were not without their adven-
turous moments, and on one occasion in Berlin, Groner
and Schleicher, alone and on foot, forced their way to
Ebert’s rescue through a howHng mobin the Wilhelmstrasse,
which had virtually imprisoned him in the Chancellery.

The supreme ambition of Schleicher was the possession
of power without responsibility, and the march of events
i m mediately following the signature of peace materially
aided ’him in realizing this ideal. While Groner turned
civilian in good earnest, Schleicher capitalized his previous
contacts and secured for himself a vague and undefined
but secure position in the Ministry of Defence, and from
here, in the little room overlooking the Landwehr Canal,
he began that strange career which was to carry him to the
Chancellor’s palace and to end with a mxrrderer’s bullet.

Not that he was an intriguer for the pure love of intrigue
— he was too intelligent for that; his plots were always
directed towards some larger end which would justify

298

WEIMAE AOT) NEXJDECK

them should they become prematurely discovered. Thus
it was Schleicher who ably assisted Seeckt in rendering
the army free from pohtics by creating it an Olympian
imperium in imp&rio', and it was Schleicher, rmder the direc-
tion of another member of the group of young staff officers
and pohticians, Freiherr von Wilhsen, who, having had
a large share in the creation of the Free Corps and the
recruiting of the Reichswehr from amongst their members,
maintained the residue — the Black Reichswehr, Orgesch,
Erhardt’s Brigade, and the rest — as unofficial appendages
of the Ministry of Defence which could be sponsored or
disavowed at will.

Sociable, engaging, and a successful ladies’ man, Kurt
von Schleicher gradually found himself in a position where
his advice and opinion were sought by politicians, hostesses,
journahsts, and any foreign observer who visited Berlin.
Outside the official circle and the growing body of his
acquaintances, his name was unknown to the country at
large, yet he came to know aU there was to be known in the
pohtical world of Germany, and eventually perfected for
his advantage a far-reaching system of “something which,
when practised by our enemies, we call espionage”. There
was to be a time when not a telephone conversation of im-
portance took place in Berhn but its content was reported
to him, and his agents were in every Ministry and Govern-
ment office. Not since Holstein was there so pertinacious a
pryer into the secrets of the official world.^

AE this was not achieved at once, but, with the advent of
Hindenburg, Schleicher’s position was at once strengthened
and enhanced. His intimacy with Oskar, now his father’s

^ In a book intended to glorify ScHeicher and published before he
became M i ni ster of Defence, Dr Heinz Brauweiler says- “He is a special-
ist for the watching of inner political activities. ... He knows all the
politicians and how to handle them. Naturally he does handle them”
(see OeTierdle vn der deutschen Republih, p. 33). Schleicher’s name,
anglice, means “creeper”.

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

299

personal adjutant, gave him free access to the Palace, an
asset of which he took fuU advantage. With Oskar and
Harmnerstein, both, like himself, formerly of the Dritte
Garde, he formed a small but powerful clique which, though
originally intended to coimteract Meissner’s influence,
succeeded eventually in winning his co-operation; and from
this grew that sinister Palace Camarilla which in years to
come completely dominated the President.

It was necessary, however, for Schleicher’s purpose that
he should have not nominal, but virtual control of the
Reichswehr, and between him and this attainment stood
the obstructing personahties of Seeckt and Gessler. For
though Seeckt was strongly influenced by Schleicher’s views,
he was by no means his puppet, and Gessler was equally
averse to being any man’s tool.

Seeckt was the first to go, in 1926, and the manner of
his going was peculiarly vile. Together with Schleicher, he
had planned secretly to permit the eldest son of the Crown
Prince, the potential Wilhelm IV of Prussia, to take part
in the annual manoeuvres with the rank of heutenant.
Schleicher, fully cognisant of the plan, allowed it to pro-
ceed to a point where it became irrevocable and then, by
devious means, apprised the press of the Left of what had
taken place. At once a howl of fury arose from the Re-
pubhcans, and the Government was criticized abroad for a
breach of the “Locarno Spirit”. Stresemann, on the eve of
securing the admission of Germany to the League, was
nonplussed in the face of these accusations of monarchist
intrigues, and the very existence of the Cabinet was threat-
ened. With profound reluctance Gessler was forced to
recommend to the President that Seeckt be asked to resign,
and Hindenburg was himself unwilling to lose the services
of one whom he knew to be amongst the ablest of Germany’s
soldiers. The influence of the Dritte Garde group was, how-
ever, paramount, and under their united efforts the Presi-
dent was persuaded to dismiss Seeckt from the command

300 WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

of the army which, he had created with such brilhant
success.

Schleicher’s nominee for the moment was Heye — he
was anxious in reahty to keep the place warm for Hammer-
stein. Gessler concurred in the choice, and Hindenburg
appointed him as Seeckt’s successor. But the pompous,
though not incompetent Heye, who on that fatal November
morning at Spa reported on the results of the Conference of
officers, had in the meantime turned democrat with a
vengeance. He had a tendency to persuade non-commis-
sioned officers to give him their views on their superiors,
and his influence on the morale of the army was anything
but satisfactory. His tenancy of command was short and
inglorious, and in 1930 Schleicher achieved, without diffi-
culty, his dismissal and the succession of Hammerstein as
active head of the Eeichswehr, despite the rival claims put
forward on behalf of Stiilpnagel and Blomberg.

Gessler was the next victim. In disposing of him, also,
Schleicher displayed a lack of scruple which was starthng.
The secret activities of the Ministry of Defence in the field
of rearmament had not been confined to the army. The
navy, too, had had its clandestine relations with foreign
Powers, and to these both Gessler and Schleicher had been
privy. In 1929 details connected with certain contracts for
the building of submarines in Spain and Sweden were
brought to fight and the press and parties of the Left again
assailed the Eeichswehr, this time directing their attack
against the person of the Minister. It is not established,
though it was widely rumoured at the time, that Schleicher
had, in this case, as in that of Prince Wfihelm, communi-
cated the facts to the press, but it is a fact that, though he
had shared Gessler’s knowledge of the illegal activities and
had warmly encouraged them, he made no attempt to
defend his chief, either openly or with the President. On
the contrary, when Gessler’s resignation was demanded by
the Left, Schleicher urged Hindenburg to agree, and Gessler

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

301

was sacrificed with the same cold-blooded disloyalty as
Seeckt had been.

The problem of his successor affected both Hindenburg
and Schleicher very closely. With Seeckt, the presiding
genius of the Keichswehr, gone, the position of the Defence
Minister assumed new importance and responsibihty. More-
over it seemed inevitable that a soldier should hold the
position. The possible candidates were three in number,
Wilhsen, Schleicher’s fellow pupil under G-roner, whose
briUiant war record wellfitted him for the position. Count von
Schulenburg,withequallyexcellentqualifications,andGrbner
himself. But for Schleicher there was no hesitation of thought;
from the moment of Gessler’s resignation, he settled in his
own mind that his patron, Grbner, must succeed him. For
Groner trusted him and believed almost implicitly in his views.
He would often refer jokingly to Schleicher as his “son”.

At first glance the matter presented grave difhculties
when it was remembered in what disfavour and contempt
Groner had been held by his brother ofl&cers. But times had
changed and views with them. The Court of Honour in 1922
had cleared Groner’s conduct at Spa, albeit somewhat
frigidly, and the “treachery of Weimar” loomed less large
than it had ten years before. Schleicher’s canvassing on
Groner’s behalf met with practically no opposition, and
even Schulenburg, his arch-antagonist at Spa, and latterly,
with Waldersee, his principal tradncer, refused point-blank
to allow himself to be considered in competition with
him, so strongly did he feel that Groner alone could fill the
position. “We must have Groner at all costs,” he telegraphed
to Treviranus. “We have all been mistaken about him.”

The chief opposition came, not unexpectedly, from the
President himself. Groner was a link with his past which
Hindenburg would have severed, and he did not at once give
his consent. For alone of living mortals Groner knew the
truth of what had passed at Spa and Kolberg, and would, in
the frequent contact which must be maintained between

X

302

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

Commander-in-CMef and Minister of Defence, prove a con-
stant and irritating reminder of these two not very noble
episodes in the Marshal’s career.

But there was no gainsaying Schleicher; with subtlety of
argument and cajolery, he, and with him Oskar, bore down
the President’s objections. The welfare of the Reichswehr
demanded that Groner should defend its interests in the
Cabinet and in the Reichstag. None other had so long and
so complete an experience of the mihtary machine as he,
and none could serve its interests better. Under the weight
of such arguments as these, Hindenburg withdrew his opposi-
tion and once again the combination of Spa and Wilhelms-
hohe and Kolberg was re-estabhshed.

With the success of these plans Schleicher’s position had
become unassadably powerful. With his friend as active
commander and his patron as governmental chief of the
Reichswehr, he virtually controlled the army.^ In addition

^ It IS not intended to convey the impression that either Groner or
Hammersteinlent themselves willmgly or knowingly to any of Schleicher’s
subsequent pohtical intrigues. It was simply because they both trusted
and believed in him that his influence was so powerful Groner was long
m awakening to the manner in which he had been used and manipu-
lated by his protege, and when he came to disagree fundamentally with
Schleicher, the latter, as will be seen later, had no hesitation m add-
ing him to his list of victims. Hammerstein, from the time he took
over the active command of the Heichswehr, firmly pursued Seeckt’s
policy of keeping both the officers and the rank and file out of pohtics
N’or did he himself indulge in intrigue of any kind Yet his personal
afiection and admiration for Schleicher never faded, and of this he gave
signal proof on an historic occasion. After the murder of Schleicher and
his wife, on June 30, 1934, at a moment when any display of sympathy
with a victim of the massacre rendered the sympathizer hable to danger
of life and hberty, Hammerstein, his wife, and three others only of
Schleicher’s former friends, attended his funeral and had the experi-
ence of being refused access to the chapel by S S. guards, who also con-
fiscated the wreaths they had brought with them for the grave. Hammer-
stein also took a large part in the campaign by the Heichswehr for the
^'rehabihtation” of Schleicher and Bredow which achieved its ultimate
success in February 1935.

WBIMAE AND NEUDECK

303

lie took advantage of Groner’s appointment to create for
himself a new position approximating to that of Permanent
Secretary in civihan ministries. The scope and influence of
this position, which carried with it the control of the in-
telHgence services and of the relations between the army
and the Reichstag, gradually grew and expanded, and with
it Schleicher’s personal powers increased steadily. He was
promoted Lieutenant-General in 1929, and two years later
succeeded in having immediate access to the President.
Thus both in his official capacity and unofidcially as a friend
of Oskar’s and of the family, Schleicher could exercise his
influence upon Hindenburg. No longer was it merely a
matter of resisting repubhcan influences, he was now in a
position to dominate the inner pohtical life of the country.

5

It was against this background of foreign pohcy and
mihtarist intrigue that the internal politics of Germany,
with which Hindenburg himself was more intimately con-
cerned, developed. Por throughout the life of the Weimar
Repubhc its lurid domestic history was dominated by
external aflairs and the influence of the army upon
government. The Reichstag elected in 1924, which Hinden-
burg inherited from Ebert, was unique in the aim a, Is of
German post-war parhamentary institutions in that it
contained young men of all parties who had seen active
service. The elections for the National Assembly and for
the Reichstag of 1920 had ignored this great element of
national life, but in 1924 they had asserted themselves and
at once a new spirit began to permeate the pohtical world.
For amongst the new young deputies the old fellowship of the
war transcended the bitterness of party strife, and such men
as Treviranus, the dashing naval heutenant-commander,
Briiniug, the machine-gim officer, and Bredt, the company
commander, could never allow their common bond of union

304

WEIMAE, AND NEUDBCK

as holders of the Iron Cross to be submerged in the con-
troversies in which their membership in the hTationahst,
Centre, and Economic Parties inevitably involved them.
This comradeship of the war even extended beyond the
Right and the Centre to the Left, and was the means by
which many crises were overcome and many others avoided.

Yet this saved Hindenburg httle vexation. The com-
plexities of political intrigue and the petty jealousies of
party leaders were as incomprehensible to him as they
were irritating, and there were many moments when he
regretted the sacrifice he had made, longingly remembering
his peaceful retirement on the banhs of the Leine. The
whole thing was so essentially ahen to all that he had been
brought up to, and the complete lack of military precision
irked him still more; he longed to be able to instil some
disciphne into the quarrelsome pohticians who surrounded
him.

He could not comprehend the difificrdties which his Chan-
cellors experienced in obtaining a parliamentary majority,
and could never understand why they frequently found it
necessary to resign. “Why did he go?” the Marshal would
enquire of Meissner. “He was quite a nice man.” “Yes”,
Meissner would reply, “but he couldn’t find a majority”.
“Oh well”, Hindenburg would conclude, “he suited me very
well, but if they want a new one I don’t mind”.

Almost at once those who had voted for Hindenburg
received a bitter disappointment when the Luther Govern-
ment began to make pubhc its plans for new taxation and
revaluation. His supporters during the election campaign
had made sweeping promises on Hindenburg’s behalf of
lower taxes and a complete revaluation of internal debts,
and for this reason many of those who, during the war, had
patriotically subscribed to German War Loans, voted for
the man in answer to whose appeal they had loaned their
money to the Government. Now Hindenburg was reaping
the whirlwind which had been sown in his name by other

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

305

hands during the war. From 1917 onwards every appeal to
the investing pubhc to buy War Loans had been made over
the Marshal’s name, and they became popularly known as
“Hindenburg Loans”. The man who had appealed to them
for their money might reasonably be expected to protect
them from a devaluation of their holdings and from in-
creased taxation, at least so argued many of the electorate,
and they voted accordingly for Hindenburg.

Now, however, came the awakening from so pleasant a
dream. Luther, anxious to keep, through his internal pohcy,
the support/)f the Right for Stresemann’s efforts in external
affairs, ignored almost entirely the claims of the small
holders of War Loans and pandered to the demands of
Nationahst landowners and Big Business. While investors
in War Loans only got a very small revaluation, the holders
of mortgages got 25 per cent, of the nominal value. At the
same time a law was forced through the Reichstag giving
special rehef in taxation for the forming of large in-
dustrial and banking combines, and the turnover tax was
lowered.

The result of these measures was twofold. The finances
of the Reich were allowed to proceed in a fundamentally
unsound direction, especially when in the following year
the turnover tax was lowered, and the popularity of the
President suffered a grave falhng-off amongst many of his
former supporters, who transferred their allegiance to the
Social Democrats and even to the Communists.

By the close of his first eight months of office Hinden-
burg, for one reason and another, had disappointed the
hopes of very many of those who had elected him, and the
withdrawal of the Nationalists from the Government after
Locarno caused a Cabinet crisis which extended over the
Christmas hohday of 1925. The prolonged negotiations and
bargaining made the President fretful and petulant. “The
depressing spectacle of these perpetual Government crises
must be put an end to”, he declared in his New Year

306

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

message to the country; and after a still further delay,
he sent for the party leaders and told them that their
squabbles must find a solution in a Cabinet by 10 o’clock
that evening. As a result, Luther formed a Minority Govern-
ment commanding a majority of only ten in the Reichstag,
and dependent for its social legislation upon the Social
Democrats.

Immediately, however, a new problem arose for the
President of a nature peculiarly distasteful to him. The
vexed question of the indemnification of the ruling houses
and princely famihes of Germany for properties confiscated
during the Revolution was one which stirred the country
to its depths, for it involved not only legal questions, but
the most profound moral issues. Expropriation without
compensation was emphatically championed by the Left,
while the Right regarded the issue both as an attack upon
dynastic priuciples and upon the sacred rights of private
property. Hindenbmg, as a Prussian and a member of the
military caste, was a fanatical behever in private property,
and was aghast at the idea that the possessions of his King
should be expropriated. The idea that compensation should
not be paid was, of course, unthinkable, and the whole
influence of the President, despite Meissner’s warnings as
to the constitutional necessity of remaining impartial, was
cast into the scale in support of the Right.

Nevertheless, when the matter came to a referendum, in
the first ballot fifteen and a half million voters — ^five and a
half more than had voted for Hindenburg’s election — ^were
in favour of the Sociahst proposal of expropriation without
compensation. Hindenburg had taken no pubhc part in the
campaign. He did not intend to do so now, but in the
height of his indignation at the result of the ballot he
wrote a private letter to Herr von Lobell, the former
Imperial Minister of Interior, who had been the chairman
of his election committee in 1925 and was now the leader
of the fight against expropriation:

WEIMAE AKD NEUDECK

307

That I, who have spent my life in the service of the Prussian
Kings and the German Emperors, feel this referendum primarily
as a great mjustice, and also as an exhibition of a regrettable
lack of traditional sentiment and of great ingratitude, I do not
need to explain to you. The very foundation of a constitutional
state is the legal recognition of property, and the proposal of ex-
propriation offends against the principles of morality and justice.
... I trust therefore that our fellow citizens will reconsider their
decision on this matter, and will undo the mischief they have done.

For a Marshal of the Imperial Army and an old servant
of the royal house to give vent to his feelings in these terms
was indeed natural enough, hut that the constitutionally
elected head of a democracy should give expression to such
sentiments to one of the protagonists in the dispute, even
in a private letter, was very wrong indeed. Far worse was
the sequel. To the horror of aU who stiU held Hindenburg’s
name in esteem and respect, his letter to LobeU appeared
as a placard next morning on every Idosk and hoarding
in the country. Friend and foe ahke were shocked and
embarrassed both by such an abuse of confidential corre-
spondence and by so complete a departure by the President
from the constitutional path of pohtical impartiahty which
he himself had made such a display of following. The re-
action, though unfavourable to Hindenburg, was satis-
factory for the cause which he had so wrongly espoused.
When the final ballot was taken the majority of the voters
reversed their decision, and not only was the expropriation
proposal defeated, but many thousands of acres, as well as
castles and palaces and fifteen milhon gold marks in cash,
were added to the fortune of the exiled HohenzoUerns.

The defeat of the expropriation measure did not console
Hindenburg for the abuse of his confidence and the pubhc
odium which he had incurred. He was dissatisfied and dis-
appointed, sick to death of pohtical worry and intrigue, and
tired of aU the party leaders without exception. More and
more he chafed against the restrictions which his office

308

WEIMAH AND NEUDECK

placed upon his personal liberty of action, and the more
heartily did he regret ever having allowed himself to be
inveigled into this “gilded cage”. His heart was full of
scorpions, but, unlike Macbeth, he had no “dear wife” to
whom to turn.

In an attempt to bring about a reconciliation with the
Nationahsts and to please, at least on one point, the very
disgruntled President, Luther chose this moment to intro-
duce a measure to allow German diplomatic missions abroad
to fly the Black- White-Red colours of Imperial Germany in
addition to the black, red, and gold of the Reichsbanner,
which the Weimar Constitution had substituted as the
official flag. Though the Social Democrats attacked the bill
as a concession to reaction, there is no doubt that had the
Chancellor played his cards properly, he could easily have
secured a majority for a measure which was very dear to
the tradition-loving heart of the old President. Luther, how-
ever, threw the game away. He held no conferences with the
party leaders to ensure a majority for the bill, nor did he
even warn the members of the Cabinet at what time it was
coining up for discussion. He tried to force it through on a
“snap vote”, with the result that it was lost by a very small
majority. A new disappointment for Hindenburg, but more
was to follow. The Chancellor persuaded the President to
enact the measure by an administrative decree, and this
was accordingly done. In the storm which followed, Luther’s
position was so much shaken that he was forced to resign,
and once again the President found himself in the vortex of
a Cabinet crisis.

This time a complete deadlock ensued. The extreme
Nationahsts under the leadership of Hugenberg would not
enter a Cabinet with the Centre, whom they accused of
being agents of the Vatican; the Centre countered with the
allegation that the Nationahsts were dehberately working
for a financial and economic debacle in order to fish in
troubled waters. In 1928 the mandate of Parhament

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

309

would espire and a Gleneral Election was due, in which,
according to every indication, the Social Democrats
would greatly increase their number of seats at the ex-
pense of the Nationalists. Until then the Centre favoured
the formation of a minority government, relying on the
neutrality of the Left, or a non-party Cabinet consisting of
high o£6.cials, although in principle they did not refuse to
co-operate with the Nationahsts.

Negotiations dragged on drearily. Hindenburg wanted a
government of the Right and Centre. He told the Nation-
alists that the time had come when they must show what
they could do in a responsible position. They refused.
Hindenburg’s patience was at an end. Disgusted and wearied
of the business of government, he informed the party
leaders that he proposed to resign from the Presidency and
return to that peaceful retirement from which he had been
dragged unwillingly and by false pretences. “I have made
my sacrifice for Germany”, he told them, “but I find no
one wilhng to follow my example”.

His fit of petulance had the desired effect. The majority
in the Centre Party as well as in the Nationahst Party, on
the authority of Hindenburg, succeeded in overcoming the
opposition in their parties. Forthwith Hindenburg, on
January 20, 1927, issued to Marx his Order for the Day in
terms which no German Chief of State had ever addressed
to a Chancellor.

You are directed, Herr Reichskanzler, to form without delay a
Government composed of a majority of the Right and Centre
Parties in the Reichstag. At the same time I appeal to the parties
in the Reichstag in question to waive their personal objections and
divergencies of opinion in the interests of the Fatherland; to co-
operate under your leadership, and to unite behind a Government
which is determined to work, not in the interests of any one party
but for the good of the Fatherland, and in strict observance of
the Constitution. The duty of the new Government, although the
parties of the Left are not included in it, is to safeguard the legitimate

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interests of the -working classes with no less zeal than the other
essential needs of the State.

On the basis of this lecture to Parliament the Coalition
with the Right was formed. A semblance of enduring
government had been created, but it was but a breathing-
space before the pohtical hurricane of the Young Plan
burst upon the country.

6

Thus, at the close of his eightieth year, Hindenburg
appeared a pathetic figure, isolated from the veneration
of his people and surrounded by a thickening web of
intrigue. Disquieted by the tortuous ways of pohticians,
disgruntled and lonely in his high office, he regarded him-
self as having been betrayed by his friends who had haled
him forth from the peace of his retirement under false
pretences. WiUingly, in 1927, would he have resigned the
Presidency and returned to Hanover. Only his stern sense
of duty kept him in harness. “I have made my sacrifice”,
he would say, “but none have followed me”.

In this spirit of dissatisfaction Hindenburg was naturally
receptive of any suggestion or proposal calculated to please
him, and it was the great desire of the new Chancellor to
find, if possible, some means whereby the Marshal’s dis-
appointment might be reheved. In his search Marx hit upon
the one remaining point of the Marshal’s electoral pro-
gramme which had escaped destruction, the promise of
legislation for the settlement of smaU-holdings in Bast
Prussia and the provision of financial assistance for the
settlers.

As early as 1917, Hindenburg had pledged hims elf to
devote his energies after the war to the settlement of ex-
Service men in East Prussia, and it was with genuine
pleasure that he had seen the insertion in his electoral
programme of promises which would enable him to redeem

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

311

his word. The series of poMtical crises which tormented
his first years of office had prevented any action being
taken in the matter, and now he welcomed the introduction
of the necessary legislation. With the inclusion of the Right
in the Government, the danger of opposition was lessened,
and the measure was brought forward in the Reichstag as
a private motion by that enfant prodigue of the Nationahst
Party, their Chief Whip, the irrepressible Treviranus.

But, though the small-holdings scheme had the approval
of the Nationahsts in the Reichstag, the great landowners
of East Prussia were filled with dire forebodings at what
they conceived to be so revolutionary a proposal. To them
it was but a step from the splitting up of derehct estates
into small holdings for ex-Service men to the expropriation
of their own estates. The measure, though it was designed
to raise the value of land in the East, was considered a first
move in the direction towards Bolshevism, and the powerful
Landbund of East Prussia took counsel among themselves
as to how they might circumvent it.

A solution was propounded by the veteran leaders of the
Landbund, Baron von Oldenburg- Januschau and others, a
solution which would not only safeguard the estates of all
East Prussian landowners, but would vastly enhance their
influence over the President. Let them, it was suggested,
make the President one of themselves and then their
interests would be his. Ready to hand was a most appro-
priate means, Neudeck, the family property of the Hin-
denburgs, which had, since the death of the President’s
sister-in-law, passed into strange hands. This should
be purchased by pubhc subscription and presented to
Hindenburg as a national gift on his eightieth birthday,
which fell in October. In this way the Marshal would him-
self become a landed proprietor in East Prussia and would
take good care that their common interests were safe-
guarded. At the same time an alternative to his Bavarian
retreat would be provided for the President’s vacations and

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WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

tlie great conservatives of East Elbia would have him almost
continually under their influence.

No Httle irony was attached to the proposal. In the first
place, Neudeck itself had only been included in the bound-
aries of East Prussia since the peace settlement, when as a
result of the creation of the Pohsh Corridor certain former
territory of West Prussia was, for frontier reasons, trans-
ferred to the neighbouring province. Thus, Hindenburg’s
eligib ility to join the circle of East Prussian grandees was
directly due to Woodrow Wilson’s determination to give
Poland access to the sea!

Moreover, the suggestion of the Landbund was very
subtle. It touched the weak spot in Hindenburg’s other-
wise simple character, for whatever there was in him of
vanity and Snobbismus took the form of the land-hunger
sometimes felt by great soldiers who have risen from
famihes of smaller social standing. Like the great Duke of
Marlborough, Hindenbuig had a secret desire to be a
member of the landed aristocracy. The fact that he was a
Eield-Marshal, President of the German Reich, and Com-
mander-ih-Chief of its armed forces, could not entirely
obhterate that inherited sense of resentment and inferiority
which his family had felt towards the older nobility of East
Prussia. There was a further consideration. Throughout
the centuries a permanent struggle was carried on in the
Vistula district between the Germans and the Poles, with
varying fortune for each individual landowner, and, though
even under Pohsh rule the German peasants and towns’
population remained on the whole German, the landed
proprietors pursued a pohcy of vacillation, coalescing to
some degree with the Pohsh nobhity. To these famihes the
more implacable Germans attached a local nickname, a
word meaning “Polonopbil”, which carried with it ah the
contempt of the intransigent for the adaptable. At one
period or another the family of Hindenburg had earned
this scornful sobriquet and the fact had always rankled in

WEIMAE AOT) NEUDECK

313

the Marshal’s niiiid. To become one of the territorial elect
would clear the family name for ever, and this consideration
undoubtedly weighed with him.

For these and other reasons Hindenburg welcomed most
warmly the proposal of the national gift. His ideas for
Neudeck were not pretentious. It was enough for him that
he should once again own the family estate and become a
recognized member of the East Prussian landed caste. Had
the choice been left to him he would have preferred to keep
the old house as he had known it in his youth, a remem-
brance of his childhood. But not so Oskar, his son. The
younger Hindenburg was not entirely content with his
position as personal adjutant to the President. He aspired
to greater things and had been heard to say that he must
not be regarded merely as his father’s son. In the matter of
Neudeck he was emphatic. The gift must only be accepted
if the simple country house was rebuilt as a Schloss worthy
of the President of the Repubhc — and his son. So importu-
nate was he that his father concurred, and the condition
was agreed to by the donors.

But the scheme was not so easily accomplished. The cost
of purchasing Neudeck and of rebuilding the house in
accordance with Oskar’s ideas was estimated at a milhon
marks, and it was originally intended that the gift should
be made to the President by the landed proprietors of East
Prussia. But despite the eloquence of Oldenburg- Januschau,
his fellow members of the Landbund would subscribe no
more than 50,000 marks. When this fact became known,
Hindenburg was so humiliated that he seriously considered
refusing the gift altogether, and only the protests of his
son prevented his doing so. Equally, many of the great
industriahsts in southern and western Oermany were
ashamed at the niggardliness of the East Prussians, who,
having proposed the idea of a gift, would not, or could not,
raise the necessary funds. Pocketing his pride, Oldenburg-
Januschau suppressed the traditional contempt of the lords

314

WEIMAE AM) NBUDBCK

of tke land for the industrial magnates, and came to them
cap in hand. At the same time, to save the face of all con-
cerned, the Government brought pressure to bear on the
banking and commercial communities.

The necessary sum was raised and the business of re-
building set in hand. But again Oskar gave rein to his
grandiose ideas. When the house was nearly finished, he
declared to the Committee of Donors that he could only
persuade his father to accept Neudeck if the interior decora-
tion was in better style and the stables and farmery were
stocked with horses and cattle. Once more the worlds of
industry, commerce, and finance were appealed to, for the
landowners of East Prussia frankly refused to contribute
another pfennig, and once more, rather than see the old
Marshal still further hunoihated, they complied, but with
contempt for Oskar’s conduct.

So the unfortunate episode of Neudeck drew to its
apogee, but not before Oskar had once more asserted him-
self. On October 1, 1927, Oldenburg- Januschau and the
aged “Paint-King” Duisberg presented the title-deeds to
the Marshal, on behalf of German agriculture and industry,
but it was not discovered until three years later that,
thoughtfully but illegally, the deeds had been registered in
Oskar’s name to avoid death duties and that pa 3 rm.ent of
other taxes had been deferred.

In aU this haggling the President had had no part, nor is
it even known that he was a party to the plot. His only
complicity was his acquiescence in Oskar’s importunities.

The great landowners had succeeded in their object.
Hindenburg had become one of them, and they did not over-
look the advantage to themselves of Oskar’s social aspira-
tions. His influence with the President was well known and
had been admirably demonstrated, and they fostered his
friendship and his grand ideas.

But the business of Neudeck had not entirely escaped
pubhc criticism. The sums spent on the manor had become

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

316

known and a certain resentment was caused thereby. Well-
meaning friends of the President suggested to the Eeich
and Prussian Governments that a welcome and expedient
gesture would be to persuade Hindenburg to allot some
outlying portions of the estate for the settlement of ex-
soldiers. This advice was taken, but the effect on the
President was unexpected. The small-holdings lay between
Neudeck and Deutsch-Eylau, the nearest point on the
railway, so that whenever Hindenburg drove from the
station to the manor he had to pass through them. Gradually,
as he became more completely assimilated into the Bast
Prussian atmosphere, he began to harbour a certain resent-
ment at the fact that part of his family property should be
saddled with small-holders. Little by little this state of
mind began to afiect his whole outlook on the governmental
pohcy of land settlement in East Prussia, and under the
pressure of his fellow landlords, his attitude changed from
one of support to hostihty. In this matter, at least, he had
been captured by the Landbund.

Hindenburg’s eightieth birthday was the occasion for a
further demonstration of the great popularity among the
German people which he continued to enjoy for a further
six years. Gifts of all kinds flowed in upon him — varying
from a series of views of old Berhn painted on porcelain,
the gift of the State of Prussia, to a hve rabbit from a news-
paper boy! — and tributes of loyalty and afiection arrived
from every corner of the Reich. On his actual birthday,
October 2, the day after the gift of Neudeck, the Chancellor
presented him with the proceeds of the “Hindenburg Fund”,
raised by common subscription throughout the country
and to be devoted to war widows and crippled ex-Service
men. A new postage stamp was printed and the mint issued
coins bearing his effigy.

A short while later, in unveiling the marble busts of
Ebert and Hindenburg in the haU of the Reichstag, its
President, the Sociahst Lobe, paid a high tribute to the

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WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

Marshal’s political impartiality: “From the day of his
accession to office he has acted as the representative of the
whole nation and not as the spokesman of a party, and he
has always raised his voice on behalf of conciliation and
compromise”. Six years later, when sufiering the horrors of
a concentration camp, Lobe may well have recalled these
words with irony and bitterness.

Now, if ever, Hindenburg was the Vater des VolJces, and
well would it have been for him had he rested content
with the plaudits of his countrymen and had not exchanged
the summer hospitahty of his Bavarian friends for the
dignity of an East Prussian landlord. As Mr. Winston
ChurchiU has written of his great ancestor, for whom the
wary Godolphin had proposed an anniversary thanksgiving
by Act of Parliament rather than the gift of the manor of
Woodctock; “It would have been better for Marlborough’s
happiness if something like this had been done; for the
course adopted was to lead him into many embarrassments
and some humihation”.

Two days’ march, to the south and east from Neudeck
lies the battlefield of Tannenberg, and here, in this same
autumn of 1927, Hindenburg was the central figure of the
greatest patriotic demonstration which post-war Germany
had then seen. The occasion was the dedication of the
Tannenberg Memorial, a vast octagonal fane designed as
an arena for military gatherings on a grand scale, and every
opportunity had been taken by the forces of the Right to
give tlie afiair as monarchical and reactionary a flavour as
possible. To avoid passing through Polish territory, Hinden-
burg was conveyed from Swinemunde to Kdnigsberg in
the cruiser Berlin, and on his arrival was the guest of the
Emperor’s agent, Herr von Berg, at the castle of Markienen.
Thus the procedure followed the keynote struck at the
laying of the foundation-stone two years earlier, when the
Chairman of the Memorial Committee had declared that

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

317

the blows of his hammer “had welded anew the Crown of
Imperial Germany”. The Repubhcan and Jewish ex-Service
men’s associations had been excluded, the Stahlhelm alone
of the veterans’ associations taking part, and in protest
agaiast this predominance of the Schwarz-weiss-rot the
Prussian Government refused to be represented.

But all the great military figures were there. Hindenburg,
gigantic and lonely; Mackensen, fresh-complexioned and
shm, whose proudest boast it was that his waist-line had
remained unchanged from lieutenant to field-marshal; and
Ludendorff, ponderous and grey. Hindenburg and he had
not met since the presidential election and now they bowed
coldly and did not shake hands. Later in the day, when
Ludendorfi rose to speak, Hindenburg had not waited to
hear him, and at the end of the ceremony Ludendorff left
almost alone. Hoffmann was not there — ^he had died in the
previous July.

It had been agreed between the Chancellor and the
President that the demonstration should not be purely
commemorative, but should be the occasion for Germany’s
long-awaited reply to the accusation of war-guilt. Here on
the battlefield of Tannenberg the man who had commanded
Germany’s armies and who now presided over the fate of the
German people, should refute, once and for all, the slur
which the Treaty of Versailles had put upon Germany.

Both the subject and the setting were ill-chosen. Whether
the accusation had been justified or not, Germany would
have been better advised to allow it to lapse by tacit consent
than to demand the impossibility of its public withdrawal.
In any case, it was unwise to make the occasion for this
demand a demonstration to commemorate and glorify
that spirit of military imperiahsm on which the AUiea had
based the accusation.

For Hindenburg, however, it was a matter of personal
honour and obligation. The allegation had been laid by the
Allies at the door of the Emperor and the military caste, and

y

318

WBIMAK AND NEUDECK

he considered it his bounden duty to vindicate his War
Lord and his fellow soldiers. Willingly, then, he had lent
himself to the idea, and now, in the uniform of his Masurian
regiment, to which his Emperor had appointed him colonel-
in-chief, he delivered, in his deep, sepulchral voice, the
speech which Marx and Stresemann and Meissner had
prepared for him:

The accusation that Germany was responsible for this greatest of
all wars we hereby repudiate; Germans in every walk of hfe imani-
mouslyreject it. It was in no spirit of envy, hatred, or lust of conquest
that we unsheathed the sword. . . . With clean hearts we marched out
to defend our Eatherland, and with clean hands did we wield the
sword. Germany is ready at any moment to prove this fact before an
impartial tribunal. In many graves, the symbol of German heroism,
rest men of every party without distinction. . . . May every discord
therefore break against this monument.

There is no doubt that the declaration of innocence,
dehvered in booming tones, which amplifiers intensified and
radio carried to the four corners of the country, represented
the conviction of the vast majority of the German people, but
the effect abroad was anything but favourable. The speech
had been made to gratify the demands of the Nationahst
Party and had not been intended as the opening of a cam-
paign for repudiation. Consequently the Foreign Offices and
pubhc opinion of the world were completely unprepared
for so emphatic a declaration, and at once doubts, never
entirely absent from Allied minds, arose as to the honesty
of Stresemaim’s Pohcy of Fulfilment. For Stresemann had
been a party to the speech and had had the major share in
its preparation. The Foreign Minister’s health was already
at a low ebb and his nerves were on edge. The Tannenberg
speech was but one of a series of unaccountable provocations
which he offered at this time — ^he pubhcly taunted Poincare
with preferring the Kuhr to the Locarno Policy; he defended
the decision to build a new battleship, and allowed a
Nationalist Minister to hint at rectification of the Eastern

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

319

frontiers. TMs strange surrender to the Nationahsts was
greatly detrimental to Stresemann’s foreign policy, and the
efiect of Hindenburg’s speech had to be explained away
before he could proceed with his plans for a final settlement
of the reparations problem and the evacuation of the Ehine-
land, matters of far greater material importance to Ger-
many than the academic discussion of war-guilt.

But Hindenburg was happy. His eightieth year had
closed in far more pleasant circumstances than he had
expected. He had received a touching demonstration of the
afiection of his countrymen; he was a landed proprietor of
East Prussia; and he had made a public profession of
innocence in defence of his Emperor and King. With greater
contentment than he had known for months, he returned to
the grave pohtical problems which confronted him.

7

Both within and without, Germany was faced with crisis
and uncertainty. In internal afiairs the Marx: Government,
which Hindenburg had brought into being with such
difficulty, was continually threatened with disaster. No
sooner had it weathered the storm from which resulted the
resignation of Gessler and the appointment of Groner to
succeed him as Minister of Defence than it was confronted
by a more serious crisis in the closely connected problems
of the increase of salaries in the Civil Service and the
question of education in the confessional schools.

The increase of salaries to Civil Servants had been
promised by all parties in the Presidential contest of 1925,
and particularly by the Nationahsts in the name of Hinden-
burg. In 1927 the Marx Cabinet set out to redeem these
pledges, but was at once hampered by the parlous condition
of the budget. The advice of the Agent-General for Re-
paration Payments, Mr. Parker Gilbert, was sought, and an
agreement was reached with the Cabinet whereby, provided

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WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

that the rise in salaries should not exceed 10 per cent., the
Agent-General would not criticize it in his next report. At
the same time it was agreed between the leaders, under the
influence of the young men of the Nationalist and Centre
Parties, that the increase of salaries should not be voted
before the law relating to confessional schools was passed.

In efiect neither of these undertakings was kept. Not
only did the Government put the bill for the Increase of
salaries before the Reichsrat while the final draft of the bill
regarding the confessional schools was not yet completed,
but, in so doing, the Finance Minister announced an average
increase of 16| per cent, in the salaries of aU Civil Servants.
But in the case of the middle grade {mittlere Beamten) Civil
Servants, the increase was as much in certain cases as 40
per cent. The result was chaos and opposition from aU
sides; the cost of hving rose by 5 to 15 per cent.; the workers
consequently demanded a 10 per cent, increase in wages.
Eeasonable men of aU parties, both inside the Government
and in Opposition, realized that with this huge increase a
balanced budget was impossible, and the Radical Left took
up the agitation in informing the small agriculturists and
the middle class that such heavy increases would un-
doubtedly mean higher taxation. At the same time the
Radicals urged the lower classes of Civil Servants to protest
against the disproportion in the ratio of their salary in-
creases with those of the higher grades. A fi.erce struggle
ensued which plunged the country into a storm of excite-
ment, the opposition against the unsound financial proposals
in the bill being led by Dr. Schacht, the Reichsbank Presi-
dent, and budget experts of the pohtical parties, among
them Heinrich Briining, the leading authority of the Centre
Party on economics and finance.

In this struggle Hindenburg took no direct part, but his
personal opinions were strongly coloured by the views
of Dr. Meissner, who symbohzed, par excellence, the senior
Civil Servant. Gradually the opposition became weaker. The

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

321

senior bureaucracy bought off the Left Parties by promising
them large increases in social insurance allocation and
wages, and Scbacbt, fearful lest be should “get in wrong”
with the Reichswehr and the President, withdrew his opposi-
tion, leaving Pruning to carry on the fight alone. In the end
the bill was passed; despite the strong protests of Parker
Gilbert, the only victory which the Opposition were able to
achieve was the insertion of a clause designed to bring
about ultimate economies; for the nest five years every
third vacancy in the Civil Service should not be filled.

As if this crisis had not been sufficiently severe, an even
more acute issue opened over the Confessional Schools Bill.
With the greatest difficulty it passed a first and second
reading, but in committee the fight resolved itself into a
direct struggle between the German People’s Party and the
Centre, and in the end Stresemann torpedoed the bill. The
Mars Cabinet was spht to its foundations, and its prestige
was so badly impaired that the new elections, which were
due in July 1928, had to be held in May, a full two months
before the statutory limi t to the life of Parhament.

In the electoral campaign which followed, nothing was
so remarkable as the transparent casuistry and the pathetic
ineptitude of the Nationahsts, the party with which
Hindenburg’s name was stiU associated. One of the major
tragedies of the Weimar System was the complete failure
of the great Conservative body to realize either its national
obhgations or its pohtical opportunities. Its logical mission
was to achieve the national awakening of young Germany
(which was later accompKshed by Adolf Hitler in his own
pecuhar style), and at the outset, if properly led, it could
have succeeded. Instead, it confided its leadership to Alfred
Hugenberg, the newspaper and film magnate, and allowed
him to juggle with the party funds to such an extent that
he very soon had them completely under his own control.
So firm a grip did Hugenberg attain on the party that those
who disagreed with him had no choice but to resign. That

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WEIMAR AND NEUEECK

they did resign is to the credit of such men as Count Westarp
and Trevixanus, hut they were too late to be able to build
up a real Conservative movement. The Nationahst Party,
which could have done so much to bridge the gulf between
the new Germany and the old, betrayed its trust and its
traditions. Under Hugenberg it dehberately put pohtical
before national considerations, and went so far as to con-
template with equanimity a national collapse which might
bring it pohtical advantage. Finally it surrendered abjectly
to Hitler on his own terms, and reaped the well-merited
reward of aU time-servers.

Hugenberg’s tactics during the election of 1928 were
characteristic of his whole career. Anxious to profit both
from the national popularity of the President and from the
failure of the Government which the President had put into
power, the Nationahsts adopted two conflicting slogans:
“Every Vote cast for the Nationahsts is a Vote for Hinden-
burg” was used on some occasions, and “Vote for the
Nationahsts if you are discontented” on others. Finally,
when they realized that the tide was turning against them
and that the only alternative to a Sociahst Government
was a Cabinet appointed by Hindenburg, they exhorted
the electors, by means of placards and handbills, to “Extend
the Power of the President”.

Their efforts were in vain. When the country went to the
polls on May 20, 1928, it was found that, with the exception
of the Economic Party, aU groups had lost heavily to the
Socialists and Communists, who between them had 40 per
cent, of the whole. The Centre Party representation fell
to its lowest level at any time during the Repubhc; the
Nationahsts lost a fifth of then supporters, and moreover
serious differences of opinion arose between themselves. Not
only had they lost to the Social Democrats but to new
parties, whilst at the same time the National Sociahst
followers of Adolf Hitler were only returned to the Eeichstag
with twelve seats.

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323

The efiect of the elections upon the household of the
President was almost one of panic. At a dinner-party given
to a number of party leaders a few days after the results
had been declared, Meissner announced that Hindenbirrg
would be only too pleased to have a government of the
great Coahtion, his sole conditions being that Stresemann
should be retained at the Foreign Office and Groner at the
Minis try of Defence. In reality, the President’s advisers
favoured a much greater swing to the Left than had ever
been contemplated even under Ebert. Greater moderation,
however, prevailed, and a government was eventually
formed by the Social Democrat leader, Hermann MiiUer,
including both Stresemann and Groner, and based on the
support of the Sociahsts, Democrats, and Centre, with the
German and Bavarian People’s Parties adopting an attitude
of benevolent neutrahty. In the phrase of Stresemann, it
was a Government of the Grand Coahtion in posse but not
in esse.

While the Muller Government was struggling at home
with the problem of balancing the budget, and abroad with
that of reparation payments, the hTationaUsts endeavoured
to recover some of their shattered prestige. As usual, they
took refuge behind the personahty of Hindenburg. Hugen-
berg, allying himself with the Stahlhelm, who were at that
time in need of political exercise and a new slogan, developed
his agitation for granting dictatorial powers to the Presi-
dent, and throughout the remainder of the year busied him-
self with the preparations for a popular referendum on
“Hindenburg versus the Democratic State”.

The issue was made entirely without Hindenburg’s ap-
proval or support. At this time he was still opposed even to
dictatorial power or to the so-called presidial government.
But he did nothing to dissociate himself from the agitation.
He remained the honorary president of the Stahlhelm and
confined himself to sharp criticism of Hugenberg in private.
The strictures, however, were passed on by Schleicher to the

24

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

sbellious younger members of the Nationalist Party in
iicb a way as to give them the impression that they would
e doing the President’s pleasure if they ousted Hugenberg
■om the leadership of the party.

The plans of Hugenberg for a referendum proved a
omplete failure, though the Right wing of the German
'eople’s Party was sufidciently won over to the idea to
lake a vague movement in the Reichstag for an extension
f the presidential powers. Hugenberg was a sufficiently
stute pohtician to know when he had picked a loser. With-
ut compunction he abandoned the campaign and turned
is attention to other, more troubled, waters in which he
ould fish with greater advantage.

The winter of 1928-29 was particularly hard. All Europe
tiivered, and in Germany the numbers of the unemployed
icreased heavily, bringing social unrest and pohtical com-
hcations. Distress spread alike in town and country, and
1 both there grew up a discontent with the ineptitude of
tie Reichstag and the meanderings of the mentally ossified
ohtical parties. Gone were the days of comparative con-
mtment which had followed Hindenburg’s eightieth birth-
ay. He was back in the maelstrom of political crises, and
is own personality was beginning to be obscured by the
itrigues which emanated from his household and shrouded
,nd befogged his natural shrewdness. Schleicher and Oskar
fere working in close harmony with Meissner; they were
lever enough not to attempt to supplant the Secretary of
)tate, but rather to enlist his aid in influencing the President
n the desired direction. They were not yet prepared to
,hrow in their lot with the Nationalists, but with them
Tugenberg’s agitation for an increase in the President’s
DOwers had not fallen upon barren soil.

With the New Year (1929) Stresemann, supported by
Muller, Schacht, and Parker Gilbert, pushed forward his
negotiations for the termination of the Dawes Plan and a
final settlement of reparations. The first conversations had

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

325

taken place duiing tke summer of 1928 in the Bank of
England, when both the Governor and Professor Sprague
had urged Schacht to abandon his pohcy of revision, but
in vain. Many members in all parties who were experts
in finance and economics implored the Chancellor not to
pursue this hne of action, as the whole financial pohcy of
Germany since 1925 had been based upon the supposition
that the machinery of the Dawes Plan would stop auto-
matically as soon as the so-called Grosser Besserungsschein
should come iuto force in the late autumn of 1928.^ It was
their intention that, without talking about the necessity of
revision, Germany’s futile efiorts to carry on under this
additional burden should prove that the breakdown of the
Dawes Plan was inevitable.

Stresemann, however, persisted. His struggle with his
rapidly deteriorating health was reaching its final phase,
and before his eyes stiU shone the dream of a dehvered
Rhineland. He carried the Chancellor with him and pushed
on his negotiations as rapidly as possible. In February 1929
the Young Committee met, and in June its report was ready
for signature. Again opposition arose in Germany. The sum
which might be deducted each year by the new Plan from
the total annuities of the Dawes Plan was very small, and
would, it was declared, bring httle rehef to Germany. Strong
pressure was brought to bear upon the President, both by the
Right and the Left, not to authorize the acceptance of the
Plan, but Schacht asserted that in case of refusal he could
not be responsible for the financial situation of Germany.
Stresemann and Schacht won the day; on June 7 the new
Plan was signed in Paris and its contents became known
to the world.

^ Under the prosperity index devised in accordance with the Dawes
Plan, the full annuity payment of 2| milliards was only reached in the
financial year 1928-29, at which time the portion to be contributed
from the budget was more than doubled, representing, m fact, exactly
half the annuity.

326

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

There can be no question that the provisions of the Young
Plan brought certain advantages to Germany not contained
in the Dawes Plan, amongst them the fact that a “final”
solution had been found for the whole problem of reparation
payments. In many respects it was a spectacular success
for the Policy of Fulfilment, but there were men in Ger-
many at that time who would have preferred a national
disaster to a victory for Stresemann.

Among these was Hugenberg, who seized upon the pro-
visions of the Young Plan as a God-given opportunity to
attack the Republican system and the policy of Erfullung.
Even before the plans for the Hague Conference, which
was to give legal form to the Plan, had been completed, he
had set about mobilizing his old aUies and adding to them
new forces. The full blast of his press and film propaganda,
the combined might of the Nationahsts, the Pan-German
League, and the Stahlhelm,) were thrown into the fight
against the Young Plan, and in the frenzy of his zeal
Hugenberg condescended to seek the support of Hitler and
the National Sociahsts.

Without regard for this storm gathering at home, Strese-
mann proceeded to the conference at the Hague in the
month of August. His contempt for Hugenberg’s mud-
slinging was such that he might well have used Guizot’s
famous taunt: “You may pile up your abuse as high as you
hke, it wiU never reach the height of my disdain”. At the
Hague he wrestled heroically with death, while grasping at
the realization of his ideal. So often during those seven
years of his foreign policy had he dreamed of a liberated
Rhineland, and ever the vision had vanished before his
waking eyes. Now with his own strength at its final ebb,
he could not face the possibility of another disappointment.
To gain the evacuation of the Second and Third Zones he
made concessions which a man in full possession of his
health and strength might have hesitated to make. He
agreed to certain amendments in the Young Plan which

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

327

added considerably to tbe future burdens of Germany, and
accepted in principle tbe treaty with Poland whereby
Germany renounced her claims to former German pro-
perty in that country. Tbe sacrifices were heavy, but
Stresemann achieved his ideal in the Rhineland Evacua-
tion Agreement of August 29, 1929.

Yet while Stresemann fought thus desperately at the
Hague, the internal pohtical situation of Germany became
daily more unsatisfactory. Eor weeks on end the machinery
of government was practically at a standstill. The ill-health
of the Chancellor necessitated his long and frequent absences
from Berhn, while Stresemann, with three other Ministers,
was at the Hague. A rump Cabinet, presided over by
Groner as Minister of Defence, endeavoured to cope with
the business of government but without conspicuous
success, and as a result the emasculated Reichskabinet
became the butt of many a joke at the cafe tables and
cabaret performances.

It was at this period that Schleicher’s direct contact with
party pohtics and State affairs began. Groner, tmused and
in many ways unsuited to the position of acting Chancellor,
leaned more and more for support upon his brilliant young
assistant, on whom he depended for the preparation of his
Cabinet statements and routine business. Soon it became
necessary for Schleicher to join the Secretaries of State of
the President and the Chancellor at Cabinet meetings.
He became conversant with all secrets of State, and
Groner used him frequently as go-between in negotiation
with party leaders. The situation appealed strongly to
Schleicher’s inherent tendency to intrigue and to the sense
of pleasure which he felt in the exercise of power. Once in
possession of this new toy, he could not be restrained in his
use of it. He saw hi m self as the secret arbiter of German
destinies, and seized the opportunity to embark upon a
course of personal negotiations which led him on to those
later intrigues of colossal and fateful dimensions.

328

WEIMAE AND NEUDBCK

For tlie raoment lie was justifiably and deeply anxious as
to tbe political situation, wbicb, were it to be prolonged
mucb further, would bring the authority of government
into such ridicule that it could never recover. In company
with many others he desired a speedy rectification of the
position, and he added his voice to those who were urging a
pohcy of change upon the President.

Hindenbuxg had by this time repented of his panic-
stricken rush towards the Left after the 1928 elections and
was beginning to drift again towards the Eight and Centre.
But he was deeply dissatisfied with the whole trend of
pohtics since the signing of the Young Plan, and openly
declared his regret at ever having given his consent to it.
He began to prepare for a reshuffle of the Cabinet which
should result in the disappearance of Hermann MiiUer,
Stresemann, and several other Ministers, and of Schacht
from the Eeichsbank.

Both Schleicher and Groner were agreed that the new
Chancellor must enjoy the confidence of the Reichswehr, and
they were united in their choice of their candidate. Heinrich
Briining stood out pre-eminently as the man who should
take the hehn of the ship of State at this stormy period.
He possessed two vital qualifications for the position; he
was a sound and acknowledged authority on economics and -
finance, and, both by personal contacts and through hi^
friendship with WiUisen, he had earned the high regard of
the army, to whom he had been of considerable service in
the budget difflculties of 1928-29.

Particular importance was attached by Schleicher to the
necessity for close and friendly relations between the pro-
spective Chancellor and the Eeichswehr because he was
premeditating drastic action to remedy the iUs of the
State; action which must, in the final resort, depend for its
success upon the full collaboration between the Govern-
ment and the army. The country was faced with a serious
pohtical crisis, and to meet it the President and his advisers.

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

329

amongst them Schleicher, were prepared to follow the
example already set by Ebert, Luther, and Marx on a
previous and similar occasion. They proposed to make use
of Article 48 of the Constitution^ to bring the economic hfe
of the country out of chaos, and if necessary to amend the
Constitution in such a way that the many prevalent ills and
errors might be obviated in the future. The drastic decrees
which were envisaged might easily result in grave poHtical
repercussions, and for this reason it was essential to have a
Chancellor in whom the Reichswehr had complete confidence.

But Briining, when approached tentatively by Schleicher,
was not enamoured of the prospect. First of all he was
opposed to any change of government before the evacua-
tion of the Rhineland had been accomphshed, and was
frankly astounded at the use of Article 48 which was pro-
posed. Such a proposal disclosed to him a lack of foresight
and appreciation of the gravity of the situation among the
President’s advisers. The action which they were prepared
to take would necessitate the application of Article 48, not
for six months, as they optimistically envisaged, but

^ The text of Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution ran as follows:

“If any State does not perform the duties imposed upon it by the
Constitution or by national laws, the President of the Eeich may hold
it to the performance thereof by force of arms

“If public safety and order in the G-erman Commonwealth is materially
disturbed or endangered, the President of the Reich may take the necessary
measures to restore pubhc safety and order, and, if necessary, to inter-
vene by force of arms. To this end he may temporarily suspend, in whole
or in part, the fundamental rights established in Articles 114, 115, 117,
118, 123, 124, and 153.

“The President of the Reich must immediately inform the Reichstag
of all measures adopted by authority of Paragraphs 1 or 2 of this Article.
These measures shall be revoked at the demand of the Reichstag.

“If there is danger from delay, the State Cabinet may for its own
territory take provisional measures as specified in Paragraph 2. These
measures shall be revoked at the demand of the President of the Reich
or of the Reichstag.

“The details will be regulated by a national law.”

330

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

possibly for two or three years. The existing Keichstag,
Bruning knew well, would be unquestionably opposed to
such a pohcy; only by the very greatest care and prepara-
tion could this opposition be overcome, and the necessary
park amentary support assured.

All these objections Briining voiced to Schleicher, but
the General remained undaunted. The legal position, he said,
had been fully examined by the Law Ofbcers, and they
were at complete variance with Briining’s views. To con-
vince him of this, Schleicher promised to send him a copy
of the legal opinion. When the document duly arrived, to
Briining’s surprise he found that it confirmed on all points
the objections which he had raised with Schleicher, and
was, in fact, completely contrary to the General’s views.
Briining’s first thought was that Schleicher had given the
opinion, without reading it, to one of his staff officers to
make a precis, for his intelhgence was too great for bim
to have made such a mistake. Subsequently, however, he
learned that the views of Oskar von Hindenburg and of the
President’s friends coincided on all points with Schleicher’s.
This was enough to convince Bruning that, without 'the
knowledge of the President and in direct opposition to
the expressed opinion of the legal authorities, Schleicher
was preparing the ground for a mihtary dictatorship. The
mystery is still unsolved as to why he sent to Bruning a
document which must manifestly have confirmed the other’s
opposition.

This incident is characteristic of the atmosphere which
surrounded Hindenburg at this time. He was beset by
problems of State for which neither he nor his immediate
advisers were capable of finding solutions. Every week
seemed to bring some fresh factor in the bewilderment of
an old gentleman of eighty who longed more and more for
the peace of retirement, and whose one consolation seemed
to be that only three more years of office separated him
from it.

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

331

Upon Hindenburg, in this despondent frame of mind,
burst the storm of national reaction. Hugenberg’s agitation
against the Young Plan took the form of a popular referen-
dum to bring before the Reichstag a “BUI against the En-
slavement of the German People”, whereby the acceptance
of the Plan was declared to be an act of treachery, and those
Ministers of the Reich who were responsible for its accept-
ance were declared guUty of high treason. To he brought
into Parhament this preposterous document required more
than 10 per cent, of the votes of the electorate, and the
campaign was carried on with an almost fiendish fanaticism.
The attacks on Stresemann were more bitter than at the
time of Locarno, yet in his greatness he ignored them.

The very frensy of the Nationahsts defeated their aims,
and the only people to benefit by the campaign were their
very doubtful aUies, the National Sociahsts. The money so
liberally provided by Hugenberg for propaganda was used
by Hitler for the equipment and expansion of his Storm
Troops, and the payment of the campaign expenses
was left to the Nationahsts. When the vote was taken on
November 3, the necessary percentage was gained by the
fractional figure of 10-02; but the principal figure against
whom the bill had been directed had passed beyond the
range of insult and intrigue. Early on the morning of
October 3, Gustav Stresemann had died.

Defeat with ignominy awaited the bill demanded by the
Volksbegehren in the Reichstag As a result of this, Hugen-
berg definitely lost his grip on a number of deputies who
objected to his bullying methods. When Treviranus was
forced to leave his old party in the first days of December
ite-^wasYmmediately followed by eleven other deputies re-
signing the whip, and six months later by the bulk of the
old Conservative guard, led by Coxmt Westarp, the leader
in Parhament, and Schiele. It was too late to check effec-
tively Hugenberg’s fantastic and childish fulminations.

Far more dangerous was the accession of Dr. Schacht to

332

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

the opponents of the Young Plan. Having signed the original
text in Paris and incurred much odium thereby amongst his
former friends, Schacht seized upon the concessions made by
Stresemann at the Hague to repudiate his signature and to
campaign openly both against the amended pact and the
financial pohoy of the Muller Government as a whole. His
attacks, not entirely unwarranted, brought about the
resignation of the Finance Minister, Hilferding, and pre-
cipitated a crisis which once more threw the household of
the President into panic.

No longer was there thought or talk of mditary dictator-
ship, and, in the second week of December 1929, the Presi-
dent’s intermediaries were actually negotiating with Hugen-
berg for the formation of a Nationalist Government. Her-
mann Muller, without whose knowledge the offer had been
made, told the party leaders of it as soon as he received
the news, and confessed that he did not believe he could
command a vote of confidence before the Hague Conference
reassembled in January.

But Hugenberg refused the offer. He wished to figure in
history as the man who saved his country from the abyss,
and from his point of view Germany was not yet su£S.oi-
ently far over the edge. Complete collapse was apparently
necessary before the Nationahsts would come to the rescue,
and this collapse they set themselves with gusto to pre-
cipitate. Muller, however, scraped through with a vote
of confidence greater than he had cause to expect, and
in January 1930 he and Julius Curtius, the successor ol
Stresemann in the Foreign Office, formally accepted the
amended Young Plan at the Hague.

If the campaign against its acceptance had been bitter,
the efforts made to prevent ratification of the Young Plar
attained a pitch of vitriohc invective unequalled even ir
German politics. This time it was not against the Chancelloi
or the Foreign Minister that the attacks were directed, bul
against the person of the President himself, with whom the

CONSTITUTION (AUGUST 11, 1929)

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

333

filial decision lay. Again Hugenberg and bis Nationabsts
entered tbe figbt with all the fierceness of fanatics, but in
vain. Step by step tbe bills of ratification were fougbt
tbrougb tbe Reichstag, and tben tbe full pressure of
propaganda was brought to bear on Hindenburg.

Under this ordeal tbe Marshal bore up very well. Despite
the threats and entreaties of bis Nationabst friends, be
took bis stand steadfastly upon tbe Constitution. A few
months ago tbe Weimar Repubbc bad celebrated its tenth
anniversary with solemn thanksgiving and, to mark tbe
occasion, a new three-mark piece bad been issued, bearing
tbe bead of Hindenburg on one side and bis band upraised
in reaffirmation of his oath to tbe Constitution on tbe other.
Now in tbe hour of trial be remained, at least outwardly,
faithful to bis oath; bis Grovernment bad negotiated an inter-
national agreement, tbe Reichstag bad ratified it, and it was
tbe duty of tbe President to place bis signature to tbe
bfils of ratification. Whatever bis personal incHnations may
have been, bis constitutional course was clear. He made
it known that be would sign tbe bills.

Tbe storm of invective became a tornado. Those who
only a short while ago bad cried “More power to tbe
President”, now execrated this same man as a traitor and
a coward. “Tbe suicidal attitude of a misguided portion of
our nation is only paralleled in our history by that of tbe
President”, bowled one Nationabst daily. “He has to-day
forfeited tbe unbmited confidence originally reposed in him
by every genuinely patriotic German.” “Respect has given
way to hatred. No merit is so great that guilt cannot wipe
it out”, cried tbe Deutsche Zeitung. “It is henceforth to be
war to tbe knife, a war in which there can be no retreat.”
Communists and National Sociabsts joined bands in vib-
fying tbe old Marshal, aUeging that be bad been bought by
tbe French or tbe profiteers or tbe Marxists, and Goebbels
asked jeeringly in tbe Angriff: “Is Hindenburg stbl abve?”
That ab sense of decency bad been abandoned is shown by

z

334

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

th.e remark of old General Litzmann, who had commanded
a division under Hindenburg on the Eastern Front: “Un-
fortunately we have no secret Vehmgericht to render these
signers harmless”. Hindenburg was now threatened with
the same death which had come to Erzberger and to
Eathenau.

But these wild insults were easier for him to bear than
the genuine and sincere reproaches of a body of young
Nationahst undergraduates, who appealed to him in the
name of the “dead of Langemarck” and of the young volun-
teers who had gone to their death in Flanders in 1914.
Hindenburg, who had left the attacks of the pohticians un-
answered, rephed to these boys with sad restraint, yet
firmly: “The memory of the young volunteers who sacri-
ficed their hves for the Fatherland imposed upon their
generation and yours the special duty of making sacrifices
in order to procure the liberation of German territory”.

Drinking deeply of the cup of sorrow and humihation,
Hindenburg held fast upon his course. He had known what
it was m war and in peace to be the idol of his people,
and he was now tasting the bitter wine of repudiation.
His old world had rejected him and it was httle comfort
to bim that the press of the Left and Centre hailed him as
the saviour of the Eepubhc; their praise could not assuage
the pain of parting from aU that he had reverenced through-
out a long life. Yet he kept on. The bills of ratification were
signed on March 13, 1930, and on the same day he issued
a manifesto to the German people which, though in no
sense an apologia, was yet an explanation of his conduct:

After a thorough and conscientious examination of the Young
Plan laws, 1 have with a heavy but resolute heart put my signature
to the Agreement. Having listened to all the arguments for and
against the Plan, and having carefully considered both points of
view, I have come to the conclusion that, in spite of the heavy bur-
den which the new Plan will lay upon Germany’s shoulders for many
years to come, and in spite of the serious objections which may be

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

335

raised against some of its provisions, the Young Plan represents, m
comparison with the Dawes Plan, an improvement and a rehef, and
a step forward economically and politically along the hard path of
Germany’s re-establishment and liberation. In view of my responsi-
bility for Germany and Germany’s future, I could not consent to a
rejection, since the consequences of such an action would be in-
calculable for German commerce and finance, and would lead to
serious crises, exposing our country to considerable dangers.

I am fully aware of the fact that mere acceptance of the Young
Plan does not free us from all anxiety for the future ; nevertheless,
I confidently believe that the course upon which we have now
embarked and which brings to German Occupied Territory its
longed-for freedom, and to us all hope for further progress, will prove
the right one.

Many letters have begged me, no doubt with well-meant intention,
not to besmirch my name — the name of a former great soldier — in
the eyes of history, by placing it beneath these laws. To this I reply:
I have spent my life in the great school of devotion to duty — ^the Old
Army — and there I learnt to do my duty towards my country with-
out any regard for my personal feelmgs. Therefore, any consideration
of self had to be put aside when I made this decision, and any thought
of relieving myself of this responsibility by a referendum or by my
resignation could not be entertained.

If it had been hoped to disarm or silence criticism by this
manifesto, which no doubt represented the true feehngs
of Hindenburg, such hopes were doomed to disappointment.
Though the critics had failed to achieve the rejection of
the Young Plan, they could still vilify the President. The
appeal with which the manifesto ended for a sinking of
poHtical feuds and quarrels in the common interest of
the Reich fell upon deaf ears, and the reply of the
Nationahsts and of Handenburg’s old comrades-in-arms was
made by Ludendorfi a few days later;

Eield-Marshal von Hindenburg has forfeited the right to wear the
field-grey uniform of the army and to be buried in it. Herr Paul von
Hindenburg has destroyed the very thing he fought for as Eield-
Marshal.

336

WEIMAK AND NEUDECK

8

Tlie Yotmg Plan crisis marked a vital turning-point in
Hindenburg’s political career. Tbe Right, his own people,
had rejected him, and to them he had become a renegade,
whose crime was only to be expiated years later in the
“national resurgence” of 1933. To the Left, however, the
President appeared in a new hght: no longer was he
the potential MacMahon of Germany, but the champion of
the Constitution and the saviour of the Repubhc. The words
of welcome, “Hindenburg belongs to the German nation”,
with which Grzesinski had acclaimed him in 1918, took on
a new meaning, for it did seem now that the Marshal stood
for Germany and not for his own caste and party.

But, before the ratification of the Young Plan bills was
secured, it was evident that both the President and the
country were faced with as severe an economic crisis as
had been known since the dark days of the Ruhr and
inflation. In three months’ time, that is to say, by March or
April 1930, the Treasury would no longer be able to pay the
obtaining rates of insurance to the unemployed, and either
the contribution of the men themselves must be increased
or the payments reduced. Those responsible for the pay-
ments, the higher Civil Servants of the Ministries of Finance
and Labour, were at their wits’ end, and, as usual in such
emergencies, they turned to the Reichswehr. The assistance
of Groner and, by the same token, of Schleicher, was
implored in persuading the Cabinet to make the necessary
economic and financial reforms, the necessity for which had
long been emphasized in the reports of the Agent-General
for Reparation Payments. To the army the bureaucrats
admitted that, if in a few months’ time it shoidd prove
impossible to continue the full legal scale of unemployment
payments, there would be such serious civil disturbances
that the mihtary authorities woidd have to take control.
To the Reichswehr this threat meant the realization of their

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

337

greatest dread during all tlie years after the Revolution —
that they should be forced to fixe on the workers. National
Sociahsts they had scattered in Munich, Communists they
had suppressed in Saxony and Thuringia, hut the acid test
would only come when the young soldiers were ordered to
fire upon the ordinary decent working man in arms against
a Government which had contracted to pay him unemploy-
ment insurance and had failed in its promises.

Urged on by this fear, the Reichswehr brought pressure
to bear once more upon the President to change the Govern-
ment. This too presented difficulties. Who should replace
Muller? The hopes of the President for a Government of the
Right, or even for a coahtion of the Right and Centre, had
been shattered by the implacable opposition of Hugenberg to
the Young Plan. In the last personal effort which the Presi-
dent had made with the Nationalist leader he had offered
a number of far-reaching concessions, even promising the
constitutional reforms necessary to fulfil the most vital of
Hugenberg’s demands, the increase of the power of the
President at the expense of the Reichstag. All that he asked
in return was the formation of a Cabinet of the Right and a
modification of Hugenberg’s attitude towards the Young
Plan.

Hugenberg’s reply had been that he would relentlessly
oppose the Plan and aU connected with it, and the President,
who had long set his heart on having a National Cabinet in
power when he participated in the hberation ceremonies in
the Rhineland, was so wounded and mortified that he de-
termined, and proclaimed the fact to his friends, that under
no circumstances during his lifetime should Hugenberg be
asked again to form a Cabinet.

Schleicher and Groner now repeated their claims for
Pr uning as Chancellor. The fears that they had expressed
a little earher had now been revived and had grown even
stronger. They were even more convinced that Germany
needed a strong government; they meant a government

338

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

wMcli would work with theru. Though the march of events
had prevented their earlier plans from materiahzing they
had not abandoned them, and they were still confident that
Brlining was the man of the hour.

Heinrich Bruning was at that time forty-four years old,
a young man if judged either from the standards of German
political leaders or world statesmen. His career had been
rapid, and he had been early marked out for office. Of a
very sensitive nature, he was at once a romantic and a
paladin, a dreamer of dreams and a man of courage. A
devout Cathohc, he came of a middle-class Westphahan
family, and, as a dehcate, shy and brilhant young man, he
was about to complete his doctor’s thesis at the University
of Bonn when the outbreak of the war destroyed the
sheltered fife which till then had been his. The glamour of
war appealed to him; the paladin and the romantic in him
merged into one and sent him unhesitatingly to volunteer.
To his dismay he was rejected for defective eyesight, and
returned disheartened to complete his thesis. The subject
of his choice had been the comparative study of private
and State ownership of railways, and the thesis disclosed a
remarkable knowledge of the British railway system. A
brilliant degree in economics was his reward, but still he
hankered for an opportunity to fight for the Fatherland.
He volunteered again. The inroads of war upon the man
power of Germany had made the medical authorities less
particular and Bruning was accepted. It was May 1915 and
he was then twenty-nine.

His first sojourn at the front was brief. He was wounded
almost immediately and invahded home. His cure com-
pleted, he trained for a commission, specializing as a
machine-gunner, and returned to the &ont fine as a lieu-
tenant in time to take part in the great battles of ’16 and
’17, in the offensive of March 1918, and in the bitter retreat
of the same year. Bruning was a good soldier and a capable
officer. Whether as adjutant or in active command, he dis-

WEIMAR AND NEIIDECK

339

played a natural ability and cool courage -whicb belied his
student appearance. His machine-gun squadron achieved a
notoriety and fame wherever it was engaged, and was cited
on more than one occasion for “unparalleled heroism”;
Bruning himself received the Iron Cross (First Class). In the
last phases of the struggle he was constantly in action, his
company forming part of the famous “Winterfeldt Group”
— a group of units picked for their fighting quahties
and their endurance — and with them he participated in
the actions around Aix-la-ChapeUe and Herbesthal, his
squadron remaining loyal amid the surrounding hordes of
mutineers. What his men thought of him may be gauged
by the fact that, on the formation of Soldiers’ Councils,
as ordered by G.H.Q., he was unanimously elected as his
squadron’s representative.

His war experiences had wrought a great change in
Bruning. Much of the romanticism of youth had been
burned out of his soul and in its place there was a certain
mysticism of comradeship. He had learned to command
men, and to earn their respect and loyalty; and he himself
had come to know the spiritual satisfaction of following a
leader in whom he had confidence. Mihtary disciphne in its
finest sense appealed to him and he carried out of the war
an abiding devotion to duty and pubhc service.

In the chaos of the Eevolution he gradually developed
for himself a pohtical credo. His rehgion and his up-
bringing influenced his decisions, and he found himself in-
clined to the life of a civilian rather than that of a member
of the Free Corps. Though an honest democrat, there was
enough of the “realist-romantic” left in Bruning, as well as
his Cathohc behefs, to make him regret the disappearance
of the monarchy, with its wealth of traditions and its weld-
ing force of unity. To the end he remained — and stiU re-
mains — a Conservative and a monarchist at heart.

Bruning’s interest lay in pohtics and social work. Chance
threw him m the path of Stegerwald, the leader of the

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WEIMAR AND NBUDECK

CatlioKc Trade Unions and at that time Prussian Minister
for Social Welfare. Briining became secretary to the
Minister and a member of the Centre Party; he also be-
came an expert on trade-union afiairs. His genius for organ-
ization found full scope, and was used with great efiect at
the critical period of the Euhr Occupation. With head-
quarters just outside the “frontier”, Briining forged and
wielded the weapon of passive resistance with such ex-
cellent results that the machinery of occupation was
paralysed and such advantages as accrued were rendered
sterile.

In the Gteneral Election of 1924 he entered the Reichstag
on the Centre Party list in Silesia, and at once achieved a re-
putation as an expert in economics and finance. His speeches
in the budget debates commanded respect and admiration
even from his bitterest opponents, for it was obvious that
this tall slight figure, with the thin lips and nose, the re-
ceding hair and clear, blue eyes twinkling through gold-
rimmed spectacles, knew what he was talking about. He
soon came under Schleicher’s notice, and his relations with
the Reichswehr, estabhshed in 1919 and maintained through
his friendship with WiUisen, grew rapidly cordial. His
personal efforts, both with the Reichstag and the army,
facilitated the passage of the military budget of 1928-29,
and when, in December 1929, he became leader of the
parhamentary group of the Centre Party, Schleicher hesi-
tated no longer.

Eds first overtures to Briining had been unfortunate.
But the General soon returned to the attack and at
Christmas 1929 he again approached Briining with a view
to the Chancellorship. At a dinner-party at W illi s en’s,
Meissner, Schleicher, Treviranus, and Groner all urged
Briining to prepare himself to become Chancellor in a few
weeks’ time. Briining protested. It woMd be a mistake,
he said, to have any change of government before the
evacuation of the Rhineland had been completed. Then, if

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

341

a change was really necessary, the President, in accordance
with parhamentary procedure, should ask Hugenberg, as
leader of the Opposition, to form a government which should
make the far-reaching reforms. The President, Meissner ans-
wered, had repeatedly sought to persuade the Nationahsts
to take a share in the responsihihty of government by join-
ing or forming a Cabinet, but all his efiorts had been in vain,
and, if one thing was certain, it was that the President
would have nothing more to do with Hugenberg. In that
case, Briining said, the case for not precipitating a Cabinet
crisis was even stronger than he had thought. It would in
fact be a leap in the dark. They redoubled their persuasions,
but Briining remained adamant. At last, when the dis-
cussion had become a httle heated, Schleicher rose from the
table and said heavily, “I am afraid I shall have to take
office myself”.

He did not long entertain this idea, but set about pre-
paring Hindenburg’s mind for the idea of Briining as
Chancellor. The Marshal was not enamoured of the idea of
having another Cathohc about him — ^he had aU the Prussian
Lutheran’s intolerant distrust of Popery. But he hked what
he heard of Britning’s war record. Here at last was a man
who could talk his language and to whose sense of disciphne
and mihtary ardour he could appeal on occasion. By the
time Schleicher, with the assistance of Oskar, Meissner, and
Groner, had finished, Hindenburg was enthusiastic about
his new Chancellor-designate, and could scarcely wait to get
rid of Hermann MiiUer.

But Briining was not easily won over. He was loyal to
Hermann MiiUer, whose personal friend he was, and he
knew weU how desperately MuUer was fighting to bring his
Party to their senses, and to force them to adopt the neces-
sary reforms. In order to give the ChanceUor both a breath-
ing-space and additional support, Briining persuaded the
Centre Party to announce its decision only to support the
ratification of the Yoimg Plan if at the same time the more

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WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

urgent of tlie financial reforms were adopted by tbe Reichs-
tag. By this means, Bruning also hoped to bar the way to
the adventurous ideas of Schleicher in the application of
Article 48.

In the meantime Schleicher had not been idle, and when
in the New Year Bruning paid his formal visit to the Presi-
dent on his election as parliamentary leader of his party, he
foimd a mind already weU disposed towards him. The inter-
view, which normally was of the briefest nature and had
never been known to exceed a quarter of an hour, became
more and more prolonged.

Save at formal gatherings and public ceremonies the two
had never met, and now they sat alone in that great work-
room which overlooked the garden. They made a strange
contrast. Eighty-three faced forty-four; the gigantic rmli-
tary bulk of the President confronted the shght, stooping
figure of the statesman; the Field-Marshal looked into the
eyes of the company commander. Bruning was deeply
moved. Here before him was that great figure which had
been an object of veneration to every German soldier. He
was surprised at how little the Marshal showed his age. His
eyes were clear and blue, and his skin as smooth and ruddy
as a child’s. As he sat behind the great work-table with
the sunhght of early spring shining on him through the
windows, he looked a grand and lonely figure. Bruning
was touched by his evident sincerity; both his admiration
and his affection were aroused.

They talked of the war days, and the Marshal spoke with
high praise of the Winterfeldt Group. The years seemed to
slip away and it was only as if two soldiers were compar-
ing their experiences. Hindenburg began to think of Bruning
less as a Cathohc Party leader and more as an ex-of&cer.
The basis of a strange comradeship was gradually forming.

From the war they passed to politics, and Hindenburg
gave full expression to his disgust and disappointment. Sud-
denly he began to weep, those facile tears of old age, and

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

343

with, that historic gesture which had begun, and ended,
so many of his relationships, he clasped Briining’s hand in
both his own: “So many have forsaken me; give me your
word that now, at the end of my life, you will not desert
me”. The Centre Party, said Briining, woidd always support
him as long as he remained loyal to the Constitution, and
he told the President of the decision of the party Hnking
the ratihcation of the Young Plan with financial reforms.
Urgently Briining appealed to Hindenburg to retain Muller
in office until after the evacuation of the Rhineland.

The President approved the hne of policy and concluded
the interview even more well pleased than before with the
ma.ri whom he was now determined to have for Chancellor.

For less than a month only Pruning was able to keep his
followers true to the policy of their resolution. The Centre
Party, both in committee and in the Reichstag, showed
signs of wavering and uncertainty, and their parhamentary
leader could never be sure that they would not “run out”
at the last moment. In financial circles there arose a grave
anxiety that a new crisis would develop comparable to that
which followed the pubbcation of the Young Plan in 1929,
and the bankers were bringing considerable pressure to bear,
both upon the President and the other political parties,
to induce the Centre to abandon its pohcy of hnking the
Young Plan with financial reforms, and to accept the Plan
without pressing for the latter. At the urgent request of
the Chancellor, however, the Centre Party leaders refused
to abandon their course, and they would have continued
thus adamant had it not been for the introduction of a new
factor.

The bitter attacks of Hindenburg’s old friends and com-
rades had afiected him very deeply, and, while he keenly
resented their strictures, he was at the same time anxious
to propitiate his critics. In his old mind he sought to find a
way whereby he could preserve the support of the Left with
regard to the Young Plan and at the same time regain his

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WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

popularity, not so mucli with the pohtical forces of Hugen-
berg as with his fellow estate-owners of East Prussia. He
therefore made it a condition of his support for the Plan
that three hundred million marks should be set aside from
the saving which the Plan would effect for the Osthilfe fund,
established some months earher for the assistance of great
estate-owners. Hermann Muller had been forced to accept
this condition and had written a formal letter to the Presi-
dent signifying his consent. This letter had appeared in the
press.

It now occurred to the Landbund and to the President
that, if discussions on financial reforms were initiated in the
Keichstag, the true state of the national finances would
become pubhc, and the Parties of the Left and Centre might
well refuse to vote additional sums for the Osthilfe when the
money was more urgently needed for unemployment in-
surance payments. There were not sufficient funds for both
enterprises, and the fact that the President had already
exacted the promise of 300,000,000 marks for his fellow
landlords might easily cause his authority and personal
prestige irreparable damage.

At all costs, then, the demand for financial reforms must
be postponed and in the last days of February 1930 Hinden-
burg sent post-haste for Briining. The Centre Party, declared
the President, must abandon its demand for simultaneous
action and must support the ratification of the Young Plan
without conditions. If they refused to do this Hindenburg
would resign the presidency — again those “pistol-at-the-
head” tactics with which Ludendorff had so often terrorized
the Emperor and the Imperial Government — ^if, on the other
hand, they agreed, he would give his solemn word that at a
later date he would use his whole influence, even to the
extent of applying Article 48, to effect the necessary financial
reforms.

In face of this demand Muller and Briining had, like
Wilhelm II on similar occasions, no choice but to accept the

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

345

inevitable. The Centre Party withdrew its demands and set
about the discovery of a further formula of compromise
which should unite a majority in favour of ratification, while*
stiU retaining some vestige of hope for deaUng sanely with
the acute gravity of the economic and financial situation.

Gradually, as the month of March 1930 drew to its close,
the compromise took form and one by one the pohtical
parties in support of the Government accepted it. There
remained only the Social Democrats, the Chancellor’s own
party, and on their acceptance or rejection the situation
hung.

Muller was now in a position of great weakness, for rumours
were already spreading through Berlin, zealously fostered
by interested parties, that the President had withdrawn
his support from the Chancellor and that, even if the com-
promise were formally adopted, a change of government
was necessary. More and more frequently Bruning’s name
came to be circulated as Muller’s successor and this proved
a source of embarrassment and annoyance to both, who, to
a far greater degree than any other party leaders, were
genuinely and harmoniously striving in the interests of the
country.

WitMn his own party MuUer was also faced with a crisis,
a crisis strangely analogous to that which confronted Mr.
Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour Government a year later. At
the fateful party meeting on March 27 an event occurred
unique in the history of the German Sociahst Party. There
were present for the first time not only the members of the
Social Democratic Parliamentary Party, but also the leaders
of the Trade Unions and between them — as between the
British Labour Party and the T.U.C. in 1931 — ^there was a
great gulf fixed; for the latter were obstinately opposed to
any financial reforms which necessitated cuts in imemploy-
ment insurance or wages.

Undermined from without by the rumour emanating
from the Palace, and from within by the opposition of the

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WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

Trade Unions, Muller’s position became untenable. By a
large majority tbe meeting rejected the compromise and,
fully aware of the historic importance of the decision, the
Chancellor summoned an emergency Cabinet meeting. He
declared his intention of requesting the President to make
use of Article 48 to save the country from financial chaos.
The answer came immediately, without a moment’s hesita-
tion, Meissner, who represented the President at all Cabinet
meetings, replied that the President was not prepared to
invest the present Government with the emergency powers
entailed in Article 48. The imphcation was clear; the sword
of Damocles had fallen, and that same evening the Cabinet
resigned.

On March 28, 1930, Heinrich Briining was summoned to
the Palace. It was his third interview with the President
in three months, and he had learned something — ^though
not enough — of Hindenbuxg’s tactics. He was not therefore
altogether surprised when the old gentleman made his
famihar manoeuvre and proclaimed his intention of resign-
ing the Presidency if Briining would not become Chancellor.
Faced with this alternative and deeply concerned for the
well-being of his country, Briining accepted, but on con-
ditions. He must be allowed to form a Cabinet above party
alignments and he must have the unqualified support of the
President, for he expected that the economic and financial
crisis would continue for at least three or four years.

“Yes, yes,” said the old Marshal eagerly, “you shall be
my last Chancellor and I will never give you up, but you
must make those fellows in the Reichstag come to heel.”

The tragedy of Briining is the tragedy of Weimar.
There was no greater behever in sound parliamentary
institutions than he, yet under the irresistible pressure
of events it was he who struck the first blow at their
foundation. None desired more passionately the welfare
and happiness of the German people, yet he became known
as the “Hunger Chancellor”, and was forced to impose upon

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

347

them the most crushing of burdens. It would have been
hard to find a greater G-erman patriot, yet he was hounded
from office and from his country for “lack of patriotism”.
He played the game according to the rules and failed, but
to his less scrupulous successors was conceded all that he
had sought to achieve and more. One fundamental error
Briining committed at the outset. He trusted Hindenbuxg.

But in the early days of his administration his position
was very strong. The Camarilla and the Reichswehr were his
allies and the President was his enthusiastic supporter,
agreeing whole-heartedly with the remark of Oldenburg-
Januschau, that “Briining is the best Chancellor since
Bismarck”. Fortified by this encouragement, the Chancellor
followed a course of daring and courage. When the Reich-
stag refused to vote the financial and economic measures
with which the Government sought to stem the rising tide
of disaster, Hindenburg and Briining brought Article 48
of the Constitution into play, enacting the measures by
decree, and when the Reichstag refused by eight votes the
necessary two-thirds majority, it was dissolved.

It was significant that in the General Election which
followed in September 1930, almost every party went to the
polls with “treaty revision” m its programme; but it was
stm more significant that the party which made “treaty
revision” the most sahent factor of its policy was returned
as the second largest in the Reichstag. The failure of the
Allies to implement the disarmament pledges given in the
Treaty of Versailles, the increased burden of the Young
Plan payments, the heavy taxation, and the economic crisis,
aU contributed to a state of popular discontent which was
welcome grist to Hitler’s mill. With promises for all, a
bitter attack upon the Government, and a clamour for
repudiation of all foreign commitments, the Fuhr&r at-
tracted many malcontents to his banner. From the meagre
800,000 votes which he had polled two years before, he
now achieved nearly six and a half millions, and his parha-

348

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

mentary following swelled from 12 to 108, i.e. 40 per cent,
more than the different group of the National Sociahsts
polled in the election of 1924.

Briining was now faced with the prospect of a race against
time. He reaUzed fuUy that the National Socialist advance
had only begxm. He never under-estimated either the force
or the dangers of this new phenomenon in the political Hfe
of Germany. His Government must show results or perish,
and with it would perish the Weimar Republic. The eco-
nomic crisis, which enveloped the world in a blanket of de-
pression and undermined confidence in governments all
over the world, had its most deadly effects m Germany,
and increased the task of the Chancellor a hundredfold.
Foreign governments, themselves suffering heavily, were
unwilling even to consider the easing of Germany’s burdens,
and turned a deaf ear to Briining’s warnings. Each country
was suffering too greatly from introspection to take any
interest in the troubles of its neighbours, even to make a
common effort for their mutual salvation.

But Briining did not relax his efforts. None had a more
profound realization than he of the heavy sacrifices made
by the German people, and of the popularity which he
would attain for himself and his administration by some
spectacular alleviation of them. But he resisted the tempta-
tion, renouncing easy palHatives for the sake of achieving
greater aims. Deliberately sacrificing his own popularity,
he made use of the supreme power with which the Presi-
dent had vested him, to dole out to the German people the
bitter medicine which they had so long refused to take
voluntarily. In normal times such treatment might well
have proved efficacious, but in the crisis which then gripped
Germany in a vice, it could but fend off final disaster. The
tremendous sacrifices which Briining called upon his country-
men to make could only have been justified in their eyes by
some great achievement iu foreign affairs. The inferiority
complex which had embittered German politics since the

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

349

Treaty of Versailles could only be removed by a spectacular
success, the cancellation of reparations or tbe partial re-
armament of Germany. This the Chancellor knew, and for
this he laboured in vain. All Germany now reahzed that
the Policy of Fulfilment was barren of success and there
arose a low rumbling in favour of Repudiation.

When the ghastly summer of 1931 — during which the
Chancellor toured Europe in a vain attempt to awaken
understanding of the catastrophe with which Europe was
faced in Germany — ^had shaded into autumn, the Briining
Government had become the most unpopular ever known
in Germany. All that it had gained — the temporary
cessation of reparations through the Hoover Plan, the
gradual realization abroad that a choice must be made
between the public and private debts, and the more deter-
mined attitude at Geneva in the matter of disarmament —
was lost in the growing discontent at home. The “Hunger
Chancellor” had cut deep into the life of the country and
was preparing to cut deeper. His decrees were ratified by a
majority of the Reichstag only because the support of the
Social Democrats could be secured by threats of a dictator-
ship of the Right. Hindenburg watched with dismay the
growing antagonism to Briining. Like most Prussians he
knew his Bible and was heard to mutter one day at Neudeck,
‘T am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan”.

The enemies of Briining and of Weimar, for the Chan-
cellor had become a sjunbol of the system, gathered to
indict him and to demand his dismissal. At Harzburg in
Brunswick, on October 11, Hugenberg and Hitler, Seldte
and Schacht, in aU the bravery of uniforms and the dignity
of frock-coats, and surrounded by the hosts of the Stahlhelm
and the Brown Army, concluded a solemn bond and
covenant declaring war upon the Governments of Briining
in the Reich and of Otto Braun, the Socialist Prime Minister
who had controlled Prussia since 1921. It was the last efiort
of Hugenberg to keep the leadership of the National Opposi-

2a

350

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

tion in his own hands, and even from its inception it was a
failure; for Hitler, having taken the salute of his own Brown
legions, left the meeting before the march-past of the
Stahlhelm, and from that moment it was Hitler and not
Hugenberg who gave orders to the Harzburg Opposition
during its brief existence.

Why, indeed, should it be otherwise? The National
Socialists were now the largest single party in the coimtry
and their power and popularity were increasing steadily.
Elections in Brunswick, in Oldenburg, and in Hessen showed
the rapid growth of their polling strength, and by the close
of the year the party was to have a registered membership
not far short of a million. Hitler had httle to gain from an
alliance with Hugenberg save that of using him as a means
of attaining power, and the advantage of dipping into the
treasury of the Nationalist Party. He had openly proclaimed
his intention of following Mussolini’s example of beginning
with a coahtion government, and, if the Nationalists were
ignorant of the fate which subsequently overtook these
early alhes of the Duce, so much the worse for them.

Ail this was not lost upon Schleicher, and he sought for
some means to split the party and thereby deprive it of
much of its chance of success. In any case, he felt, this
great force of national resurgence must not go unchecked.

To Schleicher may well have occurred the historical
parallel of the days before the War of Liberation, when the
ideahstic patriotism of national resurrection engendered
by the Tugenhund had been “captured” and controlled by
the gerdus of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The Prussian
General Stafi had forged from it a weapon which had over-
thrown Napoleon and led on, step by step, to Sadowa and
Sedan and to . . . But there the vision paled. Nevertheless,
the fatal mistake would not be made this time, and it was
clearly the mission of the Reichswehr, and, in particular, of
Schleicher, to canalize this great force of awakening youth
into channels where it could do most good to Germany, to

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

361

the army, and to ScHeicher. Hitler’s potential power must
be nipped in the bud and every means must be used to
bring him within Schleicher’s influence. Thus th.e feld-graue
Eminenz of the Keichswehr planned and plotted, and from
that day, in the autumn of 1931, began his early contacts
withRohm, Chief of Staff of theBrown Army; contacts which
lasted until Schleicher had to cede to Hitler in January
1933. After that they did not see each other again: both
were murdered on June 30, 1934.

Nor was Bruning xmappreciative of the situation. He was
fully aware that Ms policy of personal and national im-
molation had resulted, through no fault of Ms, if not in
actual failure, at least in earning him a degree of un-
popularity almost unparalleled in German Mstory. Yet in
tMs the lonely Chancellor wrapped himself, as it were in a
cloak, and wearily plaimed anew for the salvation of Ms
coimtry.

Two opportumties, he knew, were about to present them-
selves; the report of the Committee of Experts at Basle
appointed to enquire into the financial and economic
position of Germany should give Mm the chance to make
public declaration that the country could no longer pay
reparations, and the opening of the Disarmament Coiiference
in the coming year would give the signatories of the Treaty
of Versailles a last opportunity to make good their pro-
mises to Germany. With reparations gone and a formula
either for the disarmament of the Allies or the rearmament
of Germany, much of the Nazi thunder would have been
stolen, and it might then be possible to take them into the
Government and to give them a taste of responsibility. It
was the last chance for Europe and for Germany.

But a more immediate problem for the Chancellor which
had overshadowed the policy since 1930 was that of the
presidency. In March of the following year Hindenburg’s
term of office would end. Coifld Br unin g persuade Mm to
stand again? Should he do so? Was the old Marshal physic-

362

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

ally capable of taking on another term? Was there anyone
else who could rally the nation in opposition to the Nazis,
who would certainly contest the election? These were the
questions which Briining pondered in the ascetic monastic-
ism with which he surrounded himself.

Hindenburg’s condition at the time was on the whole
very satisfactory. At eighty-four he was a very remarkable
old man; in excellent physical health, he ate and drank
enormously, and slept well and long. His brain, if caught at
the right moment, was clear and perceptive, and his peasant
cunning had not deserted him. The writer well remembers
peeing him at Potsdam one brilliant morning in October
1931. Some military ceremony was taking place and a guard
of honour awaited the President’s arrival. A large closed
car drew up, an orderly opened the door, and out jumped
two smart young stafi ofl&cers. Then a pause, and slowly,
very slowly, there emerged, backwards and bare-headed,
an enormous figure. Again a pause, though shorter this
time, while one of the young ofiS.cers extracted from the
interior of the car a PicTcelhaube, which was ceremoniously
placed upon the great square head with its hair en brosse.
Then the figure turned about and one had the momentary
impression of a gigantic clockwork doll waiting for the
spring to be released which galvanized it into movement.
His eye caught the motionless fine of soldiery. At once the
absent glance changed — ^the spring had been released — and,
one hand grasping his baton and the other resting on his
sword hilt, Hindenburg moved stifihy and erect towards
the guard of honour. The episode has always seemed to
the writer symbohcal of the Marshal’s whole career. The
moment of suspension, while the mind was in a plastic state
awaiting an impression, and then, once received, the
immediate and vigorous action in the direction in which
service and duty had pointed.

Such then was Hindenburg towards the close of his first
presidency. After deep consideration, and consultation with

WBIMAE AM) NEIIDECK

353

Ms colleagues, Bruning reached the inevitable conclusion
that the Marshal must stand agaiu. Some of Ms friends
urged him to offer Mmself for election, but he refused with
complete finahty. He knew well enough that, Ms own
unpopularity apart, the man who could beat Hitler at the
polls must have more glamour and appeal than he could
command. It would take a Field-Marshal to beat the
corporal.

But Briimng was aiming beyond the mere re-election of
Hindenburg and the perpetuation of the Weimar System.
He was thinking of Germany and was fearful of what a Nazi
victory might mean for her. The re-election of Hindenburg
would but postpone such a victory, for it was hardly to be
expected that he could survive a further seven years of
office, and Hitler was the logical successor to Hindenburg.
To Briining’s conservative-democrat spirit the implications
of a National Socialist regime were abhorrent, and to save
Germany from such a fate he was prepared to take bold
and radical measures. Long hours of contemplation had
convinced him that one course, and one course only, could
prevent Hitler from ultimately obtaining supreme power —
the restoration of the monarchy.

TMs then became the final aim of Briining’s strategy, and
in Ms plan a role of vital importance must be played by
Hindenburg. The Chancellor discounted at the outset any
possibility of recalling the Emperor to the throne; such a
move would require a long period of preparation, and at
the moment time was the essence of the contract. For the
same reason the accession of the Crown Prince was impos-
sible. Above all there must be no revolution, the republican
regime must give way to the monarcMcal quite smootMy
by prearranged stages and with the approval of the majority
of the people concerned.

In secret talks with influential members of the Reichstag
of different parties, Brumng had derived sufficient en-
couragement to approach the question not only as an ideal

WEIMAE AJTO NEUDECK

354

but as a practical proposition, and the details began to take
shape in his mind. The primary condition was that Hinden-
buig should he re-elected, thus inflicting an initial defeat on
the Nazi Party. But once this was achieved, there were still
a, number of obstacles to be overcome. There must be a
definite end to reparations — ^that is to say, the rendering
J,ejure of the de facto situation which had obtained since the
iJoover Moratorium of the previous July — and a successful
demarche must be made at the Disarmament Conference.
Driining’s instinct as an economist led him to believe that
a,n amelioration of the situation in Germany might be looked
for in the coming February (1932) — a premonition which
proved true — ^and so he hoped that, by a combination of
diplomatic successes abroad and an improved situation at
home, he might both give the Nazis a set-back and suf-
ficiently influence Parhament in his favour to make his
xiext step possible.

This was to secure a two-thirds majority in the Reichstag
and the Reichsrat to declare Hindenburg Reichsverweser
(Regent) for life, at the end of which one of the sons of the
Crown Prince should succeed to the throne.

The initiative for this move would come from one of the
parties immediately to the Right or Left of the Centre, so
that no taint of Vatican influence should prejudice the
issue, and the prospects of success were not unhopeful. With
the reahzation that the only alternative was a National
gociahst dictatorship, some of the leaders of the Left whom
pruning had consrdted were already reluctantly agreeable,
and it would be virtually impossible for Hugenberg to oppose
a programme which aimed ultimately at the restoration of
the monarchy. With the support of the Nationahsts a two-
thirds majority was assured, and if the Nazis opposed the
measure Briining was prepared to give them battle, being
confi-dent that on such an issue the conservative element
of Hitler’s supporters — offlcers of the Old Army, East
Prussian landlords, former government officials, and the

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

355

Hk ft — who had joined the National Sociahst Partj out of
despair, or as the only means of realizing their pohtical
ambitions, would desert the Hakenkreuz and revert to their
old fealty.

Such was the bold plan conceived by Briining to save
Germany from Nazi dominance, but its essential premise
was the re-election of Hindenburg to the presidency.
Little opposition to this was expected from the old gentle-
man, for Briining counted on his welcoming a chance of
laying the spectre of Spa for ever. The restoration of the
monarchy would be a fitting close to his career, and it was
hoped and believed that he would seize the opportunity
presented.

Early in November 1931 the Chancellor broached the
subject to the Marshal and was astonished to find that he
was not interested in the proposal. ‘T am the trustee
of the Emperor”, he declared, “and can never give my con-
sent to anyone succeeding to the throne save the Emperor
himself.” Quite evidently Hindenburg preferred to die
without seeing a restoration of the monarchy rather than
betray his trusteeship for the Emperor. He seemed to wish
to drop the subject altogether, but Briining persisted.

A restoration could only achieve stability, he explained,
with the consent of the workers. The Social Democrats
and the Trade Unions would never consent to the return of
Wilhelm II or of the Crown Prince; they might, however,
be persuaded to support Hindenburg as Regent for one of
the sons of the Crown Prince. The restored monarchy could
never be that of 1871, or even that which the vague reforms
of Max of Baden had sought to create in 1918. It must be a
constitutional monarchy on the British model, based on the
consent of the people and operating through a system of
checks and balances.

Hindenburg was scandalized at such an idea. A monarchy
on the Enghsh model was no monarchy at all, and he would
be no party to such an emasculation of the royal prerogative.

356

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

So moved was lie that he betrayed the fact that he too
had dreamed dreams. The monarchy which he would wish
to see re-estabUshed in Germany was not indeed that of
1871, but a complete reversion to the warrior state of
Prussia as it existed before 1848.

In vain Briining impressed upon him that these were
illusions, and assured him that in the plan which he, the
Chancellor, had outlined was the sole hope of restoration.
Hindenburg was lost in his own visions and would not hsten.
Abruptly he closed the audience.

“Though I spoke with the tongues of men and of angels,”
Briining said later, “I could have made no impression on
him.”

But this was not quite true. Some tiny modicum of what
had been said had remained in Hindenburg’s mind and had
created an itch of conscience. A few days later he sent for
Briining.

It was November 11, a day of humiliation to Germany,
the thirteenth anniversary of the bitter morning on which
Hindenburg had advised acceptance of the Armistice
terms. Briining found him sitting at the window, staring
out into the grey winter sky, his huge bulk silhouetted
against the light. For a while after the Chancellor had been
announced, Hindenburg continued to sit motionless. Then
he turned heavily in his chair and greeted his visitor. He
seemed bowed down with years and memories; a lonely,
pitiable figure.

“I do not wish to go through the trials of an election for
the second time. In the campaign they will reproach me all
over again with the events of November 1918. It will be
worse this time.”

He paused and then, without introduction, plunged into
an unwonted torrent of self-justification.

“I meant well by His Majesty. There have been other
occasions in history when monarchs have left their thrones
and were recalled by their peoples when times had changed.

WEIMAE AKD NEUDECK

357

I thought it would be like that when His Majesty went to
Holland. I still beheve his abdication was inevitable, and
his flight too. The front was not holding, the troops were
mutinying and, as an old Prussian officer, I had no choice
but to protect the person of my Edng.”

Briining had been through those November days as a
company machine-gun officer. He had experiences gained
personally and not from Headquarters’ reports, and he felt
it his duty to defend the army, as he knew it, from the
general charge of mutiny. Moreover, he had been at Herbes-
thal, from whence came the reports which finally decided
the Marshal that the Emperor must fly.

“With all respect”, he said, “I hold a different opinion
from Your Excellency. At Herbesthal, for instance, every-
thing was Eed when we occupied the station, but we had
order restored in a very short time. If our messages had
been received at G.H.Q. as we had sent them out the
Emperor might not have been induced to leave. The
mistake was made in the telegraph office at Spa.”

He added that he had deposed to this efiect before
Groner’s Court of Honour in 1922, but Hindenburg had no
recollection of this.

“You may be right about Herbesthal,” he said, “but I
am certain of one thing, the division of Guards behind
you was no longer loyal.”

“They could have been made loyal in twenty-four hours”,
said Briining earnestly. “We never believed in their
defection.”

But Hindenburg would have no more of his pet estab-
lished theories challenged. The case which he had built
up to convince himself was too flimsy to permit of searching
cross-examination. He grew petulant.

“No, no, no”, he cried, shaking his head energetically.
“I know you are wrong. They were all wrong. I knew
already in February 1918 that the war was lost, but I was
willing to let Ludendorff have his fling.”

368

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

He relapsed into rmnbling silence, and the Chancellor
left him to his memories and his conscience.

But Briining did not lose heart, though he might well
have been excused for doing so. He was fighting on so
many fronts now; the opposition of the Nazis was becoming
daily fiercer, and so many factors were desperately im-
portant for his success. Moreover he was unable to give the
people any alleviation of their sufferings. On the contrary,
he was compelled to add to their burdens. The Fourth
Major Emergency Decree, in which, on December 8, he
promulgated the legislation considered necessary to meet
the situation, he himself described in a national broadcast
as cutting deeper into the estabhshed notions of legal right
and sanctity than any since “times of great antiquity”,
and the Committee of Experts, then in session at Basle,
declared it to be “without parallel in modern legislation”.

Throughout these days of ordeal Briining was sustained
and encouraged by the magnificent spirit of loyalty and
encouragement which animated his Cabinet. A recon-
struction had been necessary in September 1931; Curtius
had been forced to leave- the Foreign Office after the
unfortunate affair of the Austro-German Zolhinion, and
Wirth had resigned the Portfoho of the Interior on account
of the antipathy of the President. In reahty, however, this
had strengthened rather than weakened the Government.
Briining had taken the Foreign Office himself and Groner
had combined the Home Office with the Ministry of
Defence — a. very useful combination in such times of
civil tension. In loyal old Groner, his former chief,
Stegerwald, and his devoted friends, Treviranus and
Dietrich, Briining had a team at least faithful, able, and
dependable, a group of men without political ambition and
with few pohtical ideas in common, save their admiration for
the Chancellor and their determination to do their utmost
for the good of the country. Briining was spared those
disastrous Cabinet intrigues which had destroyed so many

WEIMAE AND NBUDBCK

369

former Weimar Cabinets, and tbe loyalty of his colleagues
was a vastly important factor in the courageous battle
which he fought for two years against increasing odds and
under the most difficult conditions. That he survived the
forces of intrigue so long was a great pohtical achievement
and not merely an act of strength and legerdemain.

At the close of 1931 — ^the annus terribilis of Germany
and of Europe — ^the Chancellor’s principal task was to
get Hindenburg’s consent to stand again for President.
Whether the larger plan of the restored monarchy were
pursued or not, it was absolutely necessary that the
Marshal should be re-elected, for the alternative was already
casting its shadow darkly across the path. Yet Hindenburg
was himself so undesirous of continuing longer in the thank-
less drudgery of office that he presented one of the gravest
barriers to his own re-election.

Again it was the call of duty which broke down the
Marshal’s objections to a further term of office. The
Chancellor, the Prime Minister of Prussia, his own intimate
friends, all urged him to remain, partly because they
trembled at the thought of the alternative and partly
because of the weight which his personal prestige carried
abroad. For the Foreign Powers, though they would do
httle to help Germany, had come to look upon the
Hindenburg-Bruning combination as a permanent factor
of stability, and were but dimly aware of the intrigues
which seethed beneath the surface.

Personal vanity may also have played a part in in-
fluencing Hindenburg to stand for re-election. Should he,
a Field-Marshal and one of the largest of East Prussian
landowners, make room for a former corporal who was
not even a German-born citizen and who, if indeed he
decided to contest the election, would have to acquire
citizenship by some legal quibble? Besides, he had met the
fellow and he had not cared for him at all. Briining had
arranged that Hitler should be formally presented to the

360

WBIMAE, AND NEUDBCK

President, and the inapression produced upon Hindenburg
by the Fuhrer’s frenzied eloquence bad been far from favour-
able, wbile Hitler bad been equally disillusioned by tbe
meeting!

As early as September 1931, shortly before tbe formation
of the Harzburg Front, Briining bad approached both
Hugenberg and Hitler with tbe object of securing their
support for Hindenburg’s re-election. He was prepared
at this time even to resign ofS.ce, after tbe cancellation
of reparations bad been accompbsbed, and to make way
for a Chancellor more acceptable to tbe parties of tbe Right,
if by so doing be could ensure tbe maintenance of Hinden-
burg in tbe presidency. At tbe same time be bad a shrewd
suspicion that if nothing tangible came of tbe offer to tbe
leaders of tbe Right it would at least serve to embarrass
them and to render less formidable tbe combination of
forces which they were preparing. It happened exactly as
Briining bad foreseen. Both Hitler and Hugenberg refused
to pledge themselves in support of tbe President’s re-
election, but neither wished to take tbe responsibibty for
their refusal. Each blamed bis inabibty to co-operate upon
tbe other, and relations between them became so strained
that Briining was able to regard with comparative
equanimity tbe facade of unity which was later developed
at Harzburg.

Now, however, new tactics bad to be employed. Tbe
pobtical and economic condition of tbe country made it
desirable that, if at all possible, tbe Sturm, und Drang of an
election campaign should be avoided. In addition it was
hoped that some means might be found to spare tbe old
Marshal tbe strain and obloquy which would inevitably
accompany such a contest. In face of these exigencies it
was agreed between tbe President and tbe Chancellor that
tbe latter should endeavour to reach an agreement with
tbe parties in tbe Reichstag for a constitutional two-thirds
majority prolonging tbe presidential term of oflB.ce.

WBIMAE AND NEUDECK

361

In the decision of the President to continue in office,
Briining had gained his first point. But there must have been
many moments when he was tempted to wonder whether it
was all worth fighting for or not. The edifice itself was so
rotten and worm-eaten. Oskar von Hindenburg, his appetite
as landlord only whetted by what was already his, ap-
proached certain members of the Cabinet for their assistance
in acquiring part of an estate adjoining Neudeck, in such a
way that they did not even care to submit the proposal to
the Chancellor for consideration, and, as a result, Oskar
joined the ranks of his enemies.

Was he really fighting for this sort of thing? Bruning
asked himself, and ever the tormenting answer came back,
how much worse was the alternative.

With the New Year of 1932 the Chancellor made the
opening moves in his last campaign. The pubhcation, on
Christmas Eve 1931, of the Report of the Special Advisory
Committee had shown to the world that continued repar-
ation payments by Germany were both impossible and un-
desirable, and Briining seized the opportunity to declare, on
January 9, that, at the forthcoming conference at Lausanne,
the German delegation would press for the complete can-
cellation of reparation payments.

Two days earUer (January 7) he had begun his negotia-
tions with the party leaders for a two-thirds majority of the
Reichstag for prolonging the President’s term of office, and
for this the Communists could be excluded from the calcula-
tions. Of the support of the parties of the Left Briining
could be certain, but he needed at any rate the votes of the
Nationahsts. At the suggestion of the Chancellor, Hitler
was invited to a conference with Bruning, Groner, and also
Schleicher, at the Ministry of the Interior, the Government
Department directly responsible for constitutional reforms
and amendments. This was the first occasion on which
Schleicher had met the Fiihrer, who had hitherto refused
to see him. Hitler now came with the Chief of Stafi of his

362

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

Storm Troops, Ernst Eotm, whose homosexual practices
were notorious throughout Germany, and in this unsavoury
company Briining appealed for the support of the Nazi
Party.

Further conversations took place on January 10 and then
Hitler withdrew to discuss the latter in party conclave.
Schleicher had counted upon Eohm to support the proposals
of the Government and to swing the meeting in favour of
acceptance; he was under the impression that Rohm was en-
tirely in agreement with him. But the Storm Troop Chief of
Stafi found it more pohtic to urge rejection upon the Fuhrer.
In the fierce discussions which followed, Rohm resolutely
opposed all thought of acceptance, and so demolished the
arguments of Gregor Strasser, the man who had “organized”
Berhn fox Hitler and who now advocated a temporary truce
with the Government, that the party meeting adopted a
pohcy of rejection by a large majority.

In the meantime Hugenberg had also been consulted by
Briining and had given an ambiguous answer, just as Hitler
had done two days before. Bach party leader was afraid
of the decision of the other. Negotiations between the
Nationahsts and National Sociahsts began. Only a negative
agreement was reached for repudiating the re-election of
Hindenburg by a two-thirds majority in the Reichstag. On
January 12 the two leaders made their formal rephes to
the Government’s proposal. Hugenberg, in a letter to the
Chancellor, declared bluntly that he could not support
the Prolongation Bill in the Reichstag because it would be
a manifestation of confidence by the Nationahsts in the
Chancellor. This was very far from being the case, wrote
Hugenberg, and he reproached Briining for tolerating in the
Reich and in Prussia Governments behind which there was
no majority. He added that the position of Germany abroad
would be strengthened by the resignation of the Briini n g
Cabinet, which had shown itself unable to impress on the
world in an authoritative manner the changed will of the

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

363

German, people. In conclusion, Hugenberg, whose party had
done more than any other to identify Hindenburg with their
own interests, protested against the manner in which the
personality of the President had been “dragged into party
and parhamentary discussions which do not do justice to
the constitutional position and high esteem which the
Reichsprasident enjoys among his people”.

Hitler, on the other hand, addressed himself directly to
Hindenburg and carefully avoided any viUfication of the
Government. To the surprise of all he took his stand on the
Constitution and explained in great length and detail his
juridical scruples at the parliamentary prolongation of the
President’s term of ofhce, when it was clearly stated in the
Constitution that he must be elected (or re-elected) by
popular vote. But while rejecting the idea of a parliamentary
solution of the question, the Fuhrer’s letter did not convey
a blunt refusal of the proposal of re-election, and the im-
pression was left with many who read it that the Nazis
would not oppose the Marshal in a popular referendum.

But Hitler, after a few days, was apparently afraid of
losing followers to the Nationalists if he did not take a
stronger position against the Government. Therefore, on
January 16, he addressed a memorandum to the Chancellor
which was not behind Hugenberg’s in invective. Prolonga-
tion of the President’s term of ofl&ce by the Reichstag, he
wrote, would be but a mockery, because the Reichstag as
elected in 1930 no longer represented the German people.
The plain duty of the Cabinet was to resign at once and to
hold new elections, and the Fiihrer reiterated his slogan that
“The System”, which had reduced Germany to insolvency
and impotence, must vanish.

This refusal of the Right to support Hindenburg’s re-
election by parliamentary methods greatly annoyed the
Old Gentleman. His pride and anger were, aroused and his
last reluctance to contest an election was demolished. He
agreed to fight, but in his tired old brain there was resent-

364

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

ment against tke man wiio, he considered, had forced him
into so doing, and this was not Hitler but Briining. Upon
this spirit of resentment certain of his advisers played.
Briining had mishandled the whole thing, they told Hinden-
burg; he had been tactless and he alone was responsible for
forcing the Marshal into an open fight against his old sup-
porters of 1925. Little by httle there developed a definite
sense of dislike in Hindenburg’s mind, and Briining, “the
best Chancellor since Bismarck”, the Brother Jonathan
for whom Hindenburg had been distressed, was chang-
ing his role to that of David as against the Marshal’s
Saul.

But at this moment, when there were those among the
President’s advisers who would have jettisoned Briining, he
received assistance from an altogether unexpected quarter.
Schleicher had been furious with Kohm for not having
carried out his instructions at the National Socialist Party
meeting and had for the time severed relations with him.
To Schleicher it was essential that Hindenburg should be
re-elected as soon, and with as little to-do, as possible.
The one man who could achieve this was Briining, and it
was no part of Schleicher’s plan that the Chancellor should
fall before the re-election had been accomphshed. Once
this had been done, Schleicher had schemes of a grandiose
nature. The Keichstag must be dissolved and no re-election
must be held for a considerable period of time. In the inter-
val the President, secure in his new term of of&ce, must rule
by decree and with the support of the Reichswehr.

In Briiniag Schleicher saw an obstacle to his ultimate
plans. He had outhned them to the Chancellor in the autumn
of 1931, and it was partly Briining’s refusal to consider them
that had driven Schleicher, after the formation of the
Harzburg Front, to coquet with the Nazis. After the re-
election of Hindenburg Briining must go, but in the mean-
time his retention in office was essential, and Schleicher,
therefore, joined G-roner in defending the Chancellor before

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

365

Hindenburg. Their efforts were successful and Briining re-
mained.

Schleicher prided himself on his poHtical astuteness; he
was seen about a great deal in Berlin at this time, in restau-
rants and cabarets, always the centre of an admiring group
chiefly composed of ladies. One evening a group of English
and American friends were dining at the Konigin Restaurant
on the Kurfiirstendamm when Schleicher’s party arrived
at the next table. The General was resplendent in imiform
and in excellent form. The dance band stopped with the
abruptness of syncopation, and Schleicher, whose voice had
been raised to be heard by his friends above the music, was
overheard declaiming, “What Germany needs to-day is a
strong man”, and he tapped himself significantly upon the
breast.

And yet, while Kurt von Schleicher was congratulating
himself on his cunning, Joseph Goebbels was writing in his
diary; “To put the thing in a nutshell, Groner must go —
followed by Briining and Schleicher, otherwise we shall
never attain full power”. The astute General was himself a
dupe.

Nor was he, indeed, in such an impregnable position with
the President. No one in his position or with his career
could be without enemies, and these were numbered both
among the Nazis and among the East Prussian aristocrats,
who knew that Schleicher had always favoured the pohcy
of setthng smaU-holders in the East and had opposed the
grants of the Osthilfe to the estate-owners. It so happened
that a few weeks later, in early Eebruary 1932, two in-
trigues against Schleicher, one by the Nazis and the other
by Oskar Hindenburg at the instigation of his Bast
Prussian friends, coincided. The Camarilla were no longer
in bhssful harmony and their jealousies were frequently
finding expression in thus fighting and jostling to poison
the mind of the President against each other. With the
agihty of a practised intriguer, Schleicher at once aban-

2b

366

WEIMAE AND NBUDECK

doned Ms well-known views on small-koldings in East
Prussia, and, in an effort to retain tke President’s favour,
began to criticize the scheme wMch Pruning had in
mind for the expropriation of certain of the bankrupt
estates.

TMs volte-face was more than even Hindenburg could
stand. His head reeled with the gyrations on the pohtical
trapeze, and on Ms giddiness followed nausea. To Brumng
he declared that he had had enough of ScMeicher and Ms
intrigues, and that he had made up Ms mind to send him
away. It was now Bruning’s turn to save Schleicher — so
fantastic a situation can scarcely be conceived — and,
reahzing that the General’s dismissal at tMs moment would
please the Nazis more than anytMng else, he pleaded with
the President.

There were generals in the Reichswehr more friendly to
tie Nazis than Schleicher and it was the hope of the party
to replace him by one of these military alhes, whose business
it would be in his turn to get rid of Groner. If tMs were
accompUshed Hindenburg would be lost before the elec-
tion was held, and for tMs reason Brumng pleaded for
Schleicher. At the moment neither could afford to let the
other go.

But Briimng, having learned from the preceding negotia-
tion, proposed to the Reichsprasident that he should give the
direction of the discussions for re-election of the President
by a plebiscite into the hands of Meissner and ScMeicher.
He informed the President of Ms wish that both should have
the power to offer the National Sociahsts and Nationahsts
Ms resignation if they could succeed in winnin g over the
two parties to the re-election of Hindenburg. Schleicher
eagerly accepted Bruning’s offer. But neither party would
negotiate with him or with Meissner, and both found means
of informing the President that, had they been discussing
the matter with Briining and not with the “Gentlemen of
the President”, the result might have been different.

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

367

Amidst this atmosphere of Byzantine intrigue, Briining
fought on undaunted, though with more than a strong
suspicion that he was being betrayed by Schleicher and
Oskar von Hindenburg, and fully conscious that the
President’s confidence in him was wavering.

There had been some talk of the Crown Prince being
put forward as the candidate of the united parties of the
Eight, but a stern parental admonition from Doom had
put an end to all thought of it. The Chancellor took the
opportunity of the Emperor’s veto to urge for the last time
upon Hindenburg his plans for the restoration of the mon-
archy. “Let me go to the Crown Prince”, he pleaded, “and
beg him not to take any part in the election save in your
interest and let me explain to him that the House of
HohenzoUern, like others, must make sacrifices for the
monarchy. I may not be able to convince hiTn at once, but
at least I can show him the line which might be followed
with success. Then I will come back and report to you and
your son.”

The mention of Oskar was important. Hindenburg at
once became agitated and annoyed. “My son is meddhng
in politics too much already”, he said. “I like to decide
things myself.” Then said Pruning; “Will you not give me
authority to press on with my foreign policy and with the
restoration of the monarchy? I give you my word that as
soon as it has reached the point when the transition from
the Eepublic to the monarchy is assured, I will resign and
then you can form a Cabinet entirely from the parties of
the Eight.”

But Hindenburg would not grasp his opportunity. The
man was too old, and he was still dreaming of the ancient
glories of Prussia. He gave an evasive answer, saying only
that he hoped the Crown Prince would not oppose him, and
with this crumb of comfort Bruning had to be content. His
conversation with the Crown Prince brought him little satis-
faction. Bruning was backing the wrong horse, Wilhelm said,

368

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

if lie put his faith in Hindenburg. “He betrayed my father
and he betrayed Ludendorfi. When the time comes he will
betray you too.”

Another shock awaited the Chancellor. In his prepara-
tions for the contest he discovered that the expenses of
Hindenburg’s election campaign of 1925 were still unpaid,
and so little faith had the printers in the word of the
President that they demanded cash payment in advance
for all orders for propaganda literature. Again the bitter
reflection, was it aU worth while?

The German presidential election of 1932 must surely be
unique in the annals of such political contests, if only on
the grounds of contrariness. All traditional afiflnities were
swept aside in this amazing struggle. Behind Hindenburg,
the Protestant Prussian monarchist, stood the embattled
forces of the Catholic Centre, Social Democracy, the Trade
Unions, and the Jews, while to the standard of Hitler,
the Catholic Austrian quasi-SociaUst who had only recently
become a German citizen, were rallied the upper classes of
the Protestant North, the German Crown Prince, the great
industrialists of the Ruhr and the Rhineland, and the Con-
servative agrarians. Hugenberg put up an independent
Nationalist candidate in Colonel Diisterberg, the second
leader of the Stahlhelm, and the Communist Party was
represented by the other veteran of the 1925 election,
Ernst Thahnann.

The campaign was far more bitter than before. On the
floor of the Reichstag Hindenburg was branded by Goebbels
as “the candidate of the party of the deserters”, an accusa-
tion for which he was expelled and which called forth from
Groner, then a very sick man, a spirited defence of his
chief. The Deutsche Zeitung, which had championed the
Marshal in 1925 and attacked him in 1930, now spat
venom in utter and complete contempt. “The present issue
at the polls is whether internationalist traitors and pacifist
swine, with the approval of Hindenburg, are to bring about

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

369

the final ruin of Germany.” The nobles openly declared
that “they had had enough of the old traitor”, and Hitler,
flying hither and thither over the country, heaped insult
and invective upon his opponent.

Beyond his declaration of candidature Hindenburg him-
self took no part in the campaign, but his one statement
was a fighting speech and remarkably virile for a man of
his age. Meissner had excelled himself.

In fuU consciousness of my great responsibility [listening thousands
at every radio m the country heard the booming voice declare], I
have resolved to offer myself for re-election. As the request does not
come from any party but from the broad masses of the nation, I feel
it my duty to accept. . . . Not one of my critics can deny that I am
inspired with the most ardent love of my country, and with the
strongest possible will that Germany shall be free. ... If I am de-
feated, I shall at least not have incurred the reproach that of my own
accord I deserted my post m an hour of crisis. ... I ask for no votes
from those who do not wish to vote for me.

The full burden of the campaign fell upon Briining, and
he rose to the emergency with magnificent courage. For
the first time it was discovered that he was an orator, and
that magnetism and personal charm which had impressed
so many at close quarters was now communicated to the
vast audiences which thronged his meetings. Without
resort to the tactics of the circus parade and the ballyhoo
practised by the National Socialists, he was able to hold
his hearers spellbound, and to command their respect
and their confidence. Unsparingly he flogged his weary
spirit forward and his gallant struggle, carried on single-
handed against the vitriolic assaults of his opponents, is
among the epic achievements of modern pohtics.

The country went to the polls on March 13, 1932, and
the world waited breathlessly for the result. It was the first
of five General Elections in nine mouths, on the outcome
of each of which the fate of Germany seemed to hang. But
the long-drawn struggle was by no means ended yet. The

3Y0

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

final figures, made known on the following day were as
follows:

Hindenburg . . . 18,661,736

Hitler . . . 11,338,671

Thalmann . . . 4,982,079

Diisterberg . . . 2,557,876

A sigh of relief arose throughout Europe, especially when
it became known that the S.A. and S.S. {Sturmabteilungen,
Storm troops, and Schutzstaffeln, guards) had been secretly
mobilized for a coup de main should Hitler have headed
the poll. But the battle was only haH won. The figures
showed that the large mass of the people had voted for
Hindenburg and that Hitler had no further chance; yet,
though the Marshal had achieved a majority of seven
million votes over his principal opponent, he missed (by
0-4 per cent, of the poll) the absolute majority essential for
election. A second ballot was necessary, and though the
result was a foregone conclusion, the renewed campaign
was an excuse for further bitterness, more invective, and
an increase of those bloody clashes between armed partizans
of the Left and Eight which had come to be a recognized
factor in German political Hfe.

The Nationalists, whose humiliation at the poUs had been
devastating, withdrew their candidate, and exhorted their
previous supporters to vote for Hitler, whom only a week
before they had been defaming with ecstatic energy. The
contest resolved itself into a straight fight between Hinden-
burg and Hitler, for Thahnann remained, as ever, negligible.

The result of the second ballot, held on April 10, allowed
the German nation not only to sigh with rehef but to
breathe again freely. The Marshal’s victory was handsome
and complete; he had a clear majority of 53 per cent.

Hindenburg . . . 19,359,642

Hitler . . . 13,417,460

Thahnann . . . 3,706,388

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

371

The Nationalist vote had gone almost equally to the
two chief contestants, and a milhon Communist votes had
vanished altogether, many of them belonging to that
floating vote which swung with disconcerting instability
between the extreme Eight and Left. The election had
clearly demonstrated, however, that whatever else Ger-
many needed, it did not need to be saved from a Red Peril,
and the he direct was thus given to the chief of Hitler’s
pretensions, which, even as early as this, he was actively
prosecuting.

But the two ballots showed more important facts even
than this. The forces of the Eight had claimed that
Briining’s majorities in the Reichstag were not representa-
tive of the feehngs of the country. Yet this was clearly
disproved by the presidential voting, which disclosed that
in seven years the strength of the Right had severely
diminished. In the first ballot of 1932 Hindenburg polled
four milli on votes, and in the second, five milhon votes
more than in the decisive ballot of 1925. In that year
Hindenburg had achieved 14,655,000, and in 1932 the
united votes of Hitler and Diisterberg realized only
13,900,000. The forces of the united Eight had lost some
seven hundred thousand votes.

Hindenburg was once again President, re-elected by the
votes of those very parties which seven years before had
so vehemently opposed him. In 1932 he had as clear a
mandate as in 1925. Then it had been the destruction of
Weimar and the restoration of the monarchy, now it was
the safeguarding of the Constitution and the rights and
liberties of his fellow citizens. After his first election he had
grievously disappointed his supporters, and after his second,
the betrayal of those who had voted for him was more
complete and more terrible. In each case the excuse was
the same — ^the welfare of Germany. The welfare of Germany
had demanded in 1925 the abandonment of the Nationahst
Party and the support of the Policy of Fulfilment, and in

372

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

1932 it demanded the sacrifice of Bruning and the adoption
of the Policy of Repudiation. In both cases the President
was confident in the belief that his pledges were not dis-
honoured and that his oath had been kept. “His honour
rooted in dishonour stood, and faith unfaithful kept him
falsely true.”

The real victim of the election was Heinrich Bruning;
he, who had fought and struggled with even more than his
usual energy and a strength almost superhuman, was to
reap the reward of those who had served the Marshal
faithfully. The gratitude of the House of Hindenburg was
becoming as notorious as that of the House of Habsburg
had been, and Bruning was to meet the fate of Benedek,
but as a reward for victory and not failure.

The first signs of disfavour came almost at once. In
accordance with estabfished custom the Chancellor came
to present the congratulations of the Cabinet to the elected
President and to go through the formality of offering their
resignations.

“I had been expecting your resignation”, was Hinden-
burg’s cold reply. “You may issue a statement that I have
asked you to remain temporarily in office. I may consider
the appointment of a Government of the Right.”

Bruning was not surprised; he had already been informed,
three days earher, of what would happen. By the early
morning, of course, the President had changed his mind and
sent word to the Chancellor that he declined even to talk
about the formal resignation. Two hours later, the President,
under the influence of Oskar and Schleicher, had changed
his mind a second time ; in the meantime, the Chancellor
had informed Mr. Stimson, who was waiting in Geneva, that
he would be prepared to meet him there at the end of the
week. The Chancellor could not go there with a temporary
mandate. He therefore implored the President, not on behalf
of his Cabinet, but in the interest of the country and of
Hindenburg’s own good name, to reconsider his decision.

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

373

It was unthinkable, on the morrow of his re-election by the
votes of the Left, that he should appoint a Government
of the Right.

Faced with these arguments Hindenburg gave in, and
the communique read that the Cabinet had offered their
resignations to the President, who had refused to accept
them. But another nail had been driven into Briining’s
coffin.

And now Schleicher began preparing his coup de grace.
Briming had exhausted his period of usefulness, and as
Muller had gone, so must he go. Schleicher began his cam-
paign on general lines. To the President he conveyed the
impression that Bruning’s tactics had exposed Hindenburg
to unnecessary humiliations and had identified the spirit of
Tannenberg and the Hindenburg Legend with the abhorrent
doctrines of Social Democracy. He had made the Old Man
cheap in the eyes of the people. And then Bruning was no
fellow to handle these Nazis. A strong man was needed for
that. It was time the Reichstag was closed down.

Meanwhile to the Nazis, with whom Schleicher kept
in touch through Rohm — ^they were now reconciled — ^he
preached patience. Bruning’s days were numbered, he
assured them; only a few weeks more and then there would
be a real government in Germany. Let them but be patient
a httle longer.

There were some among the Nazis, however, who trusted
Briining and would have made an agreement. Of these was
Gregor Strasser, ever a thorn in the side of the Fiihrer for
his pessimistic views and his longing for compromise. Dis-
cussions between Briining and the Nazis were going on
through the help of intermediaries for a solution regarding
the new Government in Prussia. Bruning, following the
wish of his own party, offered a Coahtion Government in
Prussia on the condition that the Nazis should have no
influence whatsoever upon the Prussian policy. These offers
were debated in conclave and Strasser made an eloquent

374

WEIMAE AND NBUDBCK

appeal in their support. He was answered by Hdhm, with
such vehemence and such an uncanny insight into the
insecure position of the Government, that Strasser was
defeated. As the meeting closed, Strasser, in passing Rdhm’s
place at the table, noticed that he had left his notes behind,
and, on looking closer, saw that they were written on the
notepaper of the Ministry of Defence. . . .

Schleicher, two days before the second ballot for the
presidency, dealt the Government the most severe blow
they had yet suffered. Because of the mobihzation of the
S.A. and S.S. on the night of March 12/13, and in view of
the generally subversive nature of all their activities, most
of the Federal Ministers of the Interior had insisted on
seeing Grdner as Reichsminister for Home Affairs in the
absence of Briining, who was touring the country as chief
promoter for the Marshal. When Briining returned to Berhn
on the day of the poll (Sunday, April 10), Groner told him
that, on the recommendation of Schleicher, he had promised
his insistent Federal colleagues to ask the President to issue
a decree suppressing the private army of the Nazis through-
out the Reich, as, under similar circumstances, the mihtant
wing of the Communist Party, the Red Fighting Front, had
also been prohibited some years before. In conference on
the same Sunday Schleicher suddenly asked for an ulti-
matum regarding the S.A. and S.S. to be sent to Hitler. All
present opposed this idea as being ridiculous if the state of
affairs were really sufficiently serious to warrant the sup-
pression of the Brown Army, and the proposal was accord-
ingly withdrawn. The Marshal was persuaded by Groner
and Briining that the authority of the Reich Government
was at stake, and on these grounds he signed the decree.

The views of the army regarding the Storm Troops had
been clearly stated by Grdner, Hammerstein, and Schleicher.
It had been Rdhm’s dream that the Brown Army should
one day be absorbed, as it stood, into the Reichswehr, and
to this idea the military leaders were unalterably opposed.

WEIMAR AND NEUDBCK

375

Let the Storm Troopers come in as recruits by all means,
and they would get all the amateur soldiering knocked out
of them in barracks, but under no circumstances must they
be admitted as a corporate bodyd The army as a whole,
therefore, welcomed the decision to suppress the Brown
Legions, and with their view Schleicher had expressed his
agreement.

But now, on April 11, the day after Hindenburg’s elec-
tion, Schleicher began to use the afiair of the suppression
of the Storm Troops as an additional lever with which to
destroy the foundations of the Briining Cabinet. He com-
pletely reversed his decision and confidentially informed the
commanders of the seven mihtary districts of the Reich
that in the pending issue he dissented from his chief,
Groner, and no sooner had the decree been made public
and the inevitable agitation begun, than he proceeded to
undermine the position of Briining and Groner with the
President.

By the dexterous arguments of which he was a master, he
persuaded Hindenburg to the view that he had been made a
fool of by Groner. These Storm Troops were not nearly as
dangerous as they had been made to appear. But since the
mistake had been made, the Government must be fair to all.
The prohibition must be extended to the private army of
the Socialists, the Reichsbanner, a most insidious institution
contaminating the youth of the working class with Marxist
principles. So argued Schleicher, but cunningly made no
mention of the Stahlkelm, of which, notwithstanding all that
had passed, Hindenburg was stiU an honorary president.

^ Hitler Mmself was as opposed to such a step as were the Reiohswehr,
but for difierent reasons. The S.A. were his army and he had no inten-
tion of allowing them to be contaminated with the Eeichswehr spirit
unless and until he also controlled the Eeichswehr. It was Eohm who had
origmated the idea of incorporation, and between Eohm and Hitler the
relation of the S.A. to the army was always a source of disagreement, a
disagreement which only ended on June 30, 1934, when one of the dis-
putants ceased to take an interest in the argument.

376

WEIMAE AND NBUDECK

The President had qxdte forgotten that, on the day after
his election, Briining had suggested two alternatives : the
suppression either of all mihtant party organizations or only
of those of the Nazi Party. He was trying to make it clear
to the President that a prohibition of the Reichsbanner
would not be possible without a prohibition of the Stahlhelm.
Hindenburg did not reahze this alternative when he was
approached in the absence of the Chancellor by Schleicher,
He had been getting a httle tired of Briining anyway, and
was disagreeably aware that he owed his re-election in very
great measure to the personal efiorts of the Chancellor. He
disliked being under an obhgation to anybody, and it
seemed that Briining had been behaving very oddly of late
— all this talk of expropriation in East Prussia. It wasn’t
healthy. A change really ought to be made. Someone who
could keep these Nazi fellows in order. And Grdner too; he
was a sick man and ought to retire.

But Hindenburg’s natural shrewdness prompted him to
ask for evidence of the activities of the Reichsbanner, and
an interval ensued while the “evidence” was “produced” by
the Press Department of the Ministry of Defence and printed
in the newspapers of the Eight. The cuttings were then
brought to Hindenburg, who accepted their authenticity,
and, in accordance with Schleicher’s suggestion, he sent a
letter to Groner — ^which Schleicher arranged should be in
the hands of the press as soon as, or even before, it had
reached its proper recipient — calling his attention to the
activities of the Reichsbanner, and exhorting him to keep a
watchful eye on the treasonable and obscure activities of
this organization.

Groner was not deceived. Though he did not connect his
friend and proteg4 Schleicher with the affair, he did detect
the base ring of falseness in the “evidence” produced. He
caused enquiries to be made and, though he could not pin
down the guilt, he discovered enough to justify carrying the
matter to the President. With arguments advanced with an

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

377

obstinacy as relentless as a pile-driver, be succeeded in con-
vincing Hindenburg that the whole premise of his letter
had been faulty, that nothing treasonable could be proved
against the Reichsbanner, and that the allegation was
baseless.

Bbndenburg agreed reluctantly and testily, but it was
im possible to withdraw his letter, and his annoyance at
being put in the wrong by Groner only deepened his dislike
for the General. The position therefore remained unaltered,
save that Groner’s personal position with the President had
been greatly weakened. But there was one other important
result. In the Prussian General Election campaign, which
was then in full swing, the Nazis made great play with the
President’s letter in order to demonstrate the partiahty of
the Government to the Marxists, and to this tactical move
only must be attributed their success at the polls — a success
which changed the situation altogether four weeks after the
presidential election.

From this moment Schleicher gave himself up to the un-
doing of Briining. A continual stream of complaints poured
into the Palace, and these, through the willing agency of
Meissner and Oskar, found their way to the presidential
table. From Hindenburg’s fellow estate-owners in East
Elbia, with no thought of gratitude for the large sums
which, through the OstMlfe, they had received from the
Muller and Briining Governments and had squandered,
came querulous enquiries about a rumoured programme of
expropriation of bankrupt estates and the setthng on them
of smaU-holders. Former friends and enemies in the ranks
of the Nationahsts assured the Marshal that aU breaches
between bim and his natural aUies would be sealed once
he had got rid of that scheming internationahst Briining.
Owners of property and many investors, frightened by
Hitler’s programme of aboHtion of interest, wrote anxiously
to ask why, if the Briining Government could not handle
the Nazis, the President did not appoint one which could.

378

WEIMAE AKD NEUDECK

Among tlie complaints and protests came those of certain
of the ruling monarchs of Germany, and these weighed with
Hindenburg perhaps more heavily than any of the others.
The wishes of kings must be obeyed.

It was true that the Nazi menace was growing rapidly.
The suppression of the Storm Troops after the pubhcation
of the President’s letter had had the unfortunate effect of
making them appear martyrs, and this was particularly
unwelcome in view of the fact that, on April 24, 1932,
elections were to be held in Prussia, Bavaria, Wurttemberg,
Anhalt, and Hambmg, in all an area amounting to four-
fifths of the Reich, and the results being therefore almost
tantamount to those of a General Election. And the results
were indeed alarming for the electors of Hindenburg, and
for all those who were not blind to the signs and portents
which the Nazis themselves had so lavishly displayed as to
what they would do when they came to power. It can never
be said of Hitler, or of his followers, that they gave no warn-
ing. Their programme was widely distributed for all to read
and make of it what they could. But more definitely still
were the declarations of the Fuhrer of the type and method
of government which he would set up. “Heads shall roll,”
he had declared, and had promised his followers “a night
of long knives”. Those who voted so overwhelmingly for
Hitler in 1932 and 1933, and who but a few years later
would willingly have recalled their votes, have only them-
selves to blame.

The elections of April 24 resulted in a series of victories
for the Nazis. In Bavaria they iucreased their representa-
tion by 34, securing 43 seats in the new Diet, while in
Wurttemberg, Anhalt, and Hamburg they made enormous
advances. In Prussia they increased the number of their
seats from 9 to 162, their gains being mostly at the expense
of the parties of the Right, including those sphnter-parties
which had supported Bruning’s policy.

It was the last warning to Germany and to Europe; to

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

379

Germany, that each successive election might see an increase
in National Socialist power; to Europe, that, unless some
definite indication were given of intention to fulfil the
disarmament pledges of the Treaty of Versailles, a new
Germany would take its own steps to rectify and redress the
unequal position thus created.

Briinuig staked all on his abihty to achieve a spectacular
success in foreign policy. The opportumty at Lausanne for
which he had hoped had eluded him, for the Reparations
Conference had been postponed till July. But there re-
mained Geneva, where the statesmen of the world were
gathered at the Disarmament Conference. True, the results
of that body’s deliberations had been distressingly meagre,
but now only a bold stroke could succeed. Although the
Nazis were in the ascendant, they had nowhere achieved
an absolute majority. They were as yet neither strong
enough nor sufficiently well organized to take over the
government of the country. They were still malleable,
capable of being controlled, and, if Briining could secure
some specific agreement that, when the Disarmament Con-
vention was finally drawn up, it would definitely be sub-
stituted for the inequalities of the Treaty of Versailles — if
he could take back this achievement to Berlin, to be followed
by the cancellation of reparations in July, then he might
realize his long-cherished plan of bringing the Nazis into
the Cabinet on his own terms and making them share the
responsibihties of government.

But this approach at Geneva was only the forerunner of
a far more ambitious plan of treaty revision which had been
in Briining’s mind. He was convinced that the world was
ripe for the promulgation of a plan of revision so eminently
reasonable that it must of itself command success. The
primary difficulty had been to find a sponsor for the plan,
and after making a survey of the statesmen of Europe,
Briining had failed to find among them one who cordd give
a lead in the economic stabilization of Europe. He there-

380 WEIMAE AND NBUDECK

fore turned to the one remaining figure of outstanding
and compelling dignity, the roi-chevalier, Albert of Bel-
gium, and, through the agency of friends, Briining placed
before the Kin g a composite programme of treaty revision
which envisaged the following adjustments: The immediate
return of the Saar Territory to Germany with compensation
to France, and a complementary agreement between the
French and German industrialists; if the Alhes asked final
reparation payment by Germany, it should not be fi:xed
higher than an international loan to be made at once to
Germany to allow her to go on with the payment of interest
on the private foreign loans; an agreement concerning the
Corridor question with Poland; a poHtical truce for ten
years; the encouragement of common enterprise between
French and German industry; and an agreement for inter-
national co-operation in a system of European electri-
fication.

It was Bruning’s desire that an international conference
to consider these points should be held under the patronage
of King Albert himself, and private discussions about that
plan went on satisfactorily in the middle of April 1932 . Thus
with high hopes (and doubting fears) the German Chan-
cellor left the capital to make his last and most gallant
effort.

Though Schleicher never allowed the Chancellor’s pres-
ence in Berlin in any way to interfere with the course of
his intrigues, he seized upon the moment of Bruning’s
absence to redouble his energies. The President left for
Neudeck, as was his custom, at the end of April, and it
was seen to that he was surrounded by his fellow landed-
proprietors, aU breathing suspicion and dislike of Briining
and the projected land reforms which he wished to bring
into force.

In the meantime Schleicher busied himself in Berlin.
Some time before, he had brought to Hindenburg the man
whom he had selected for the next Chancellor, and the

WEIMAR AND NEUDBCK

381

President had been very much taken with him. ISTow the
General was engaged in securing the support of the Nazis
for his plans. With Rohm and with the young Count Hell-
dorf, the leader of the Storm Troops m Berlin, he held almost
daily conferences — supplemented by occasional meetings
with Hitler — and outlined to them something of what was
in his mind. The proposal was that Briining should be dis-
missed and that the President should appoint a Cabinet
of his own friends. The prohibition of the S.A. and S.S.
would be at once repealed and the Reichstag dissolved, and
in the ensuing election the Nazis would be given a free
hand. In return, the National Sociahsts agreed to “tolerate”
the new Government for four years and to give it their
parhamentary support. What Schleicher imagined he was
really going to do with the Nazis eventually, nobody has
ever quite succeeded in discovering. Whether he intended
honestly to make an alhance with them, or to bring about
their fall and finally their destruction by refined diplomacy,
may not have been quite clear even to the General himself.
He was for the first time in his career being too clever even
for himself, and he had become inextricably entangled in
the web of his own intrigue. For Ihe Nazis took greedily
what he offered them, yet gave nothing in return.

Meanwhile, in Geneva, Briining was on the edge of
achieving great things. Having learnt from experience that
the pivotal power of Central Europe was Czechoslovakia,
he had approached Dr. Benes with a proposal that their two
countries should give a lead by announcing that they were
agreed upon a cut in their mutual import tariffs of 15 per
cent, in the first and 10 per cent, in the second year, with the
intention that the agreement should be extended to the
other Danubian States. Briining sincerely hoped that at
some future date this agreement might be adhered to by
aU European States, for it was his chief anxiety to keep
Great Britain within the economic orbit of Europe, and to
prevent that drift of policy which later found expression

2c

382

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

in the Ottawa Agreements. Bruning was anxious to avoid
the formation of isolated and possibly antagonistic group-
ings, which he regarded as fatal to the economic recovery
of the world, and the proposals which he made to Benes,
and which were sympathetically received, were intended
to be the basis not only of a Central European, nor even
of a Continental Zollunion, but of a wider agreement.

Briining’s greatest success, however, was with his peers
in the matter of the equality of armaments. On April 26
conversations took place between him and Ramsay
MacDonald, Stimson, Norman Davis, and, subsequently,
Dino Grrandi, at the close of which Bruning had won their
unanimous agreement to his formula. In return for an
undertaking by Germany that her armaments would not
be increased for five years, or until the second Disarmament
Conference, she should be permitted to reduce the twelve-
year period of service in the Reichswehr to five years; to
add a mihtia, with eight to twelve months’ training, for
100,000 new men yearly; and to have freedom from the
restrictions imposed by the Treaty on the purchases and
manufacture of war material. Germany should be granted
the right to possess aU weapons of ofience, but would agree
to the abohtion of all, or any of them, if all other Powers
agreed to do the same; alternatively, Germany would be
satisfied with “samples” of these weapons. In addition, it
was accepted that this new agreement should replace, as
far as Germany was concerned. Part V of the Treaty of
Versailles.

A formula had therefore been found which satisfied four
out of the five Powers, and Mr. Stimson turned delightedly
to Mr. Norman Davis, askmg him to telephone this good
news to M. Tardieu, then in the midst of a General Election
campaign, and to beg him to hasten back to Geneva.

In later years Briining was wont to say that at this
moment he had been but a hundred yards ofi the finish, and
it is tragic to think that, on this spring day of 1932, Europe

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

383

was within an ace of reaching an agreement which wonld
have changed the course of history; and yet that it was not
to be, for, just as the thirsty travellers pressed forward to
the shimmering oasis, it vanished in a mirage. Even at
this distance Schleicher’s power could be felt. Two evenings
before, he had met the French Ambassador at the house
of a common friend, and had there tendered the advice not
to negotiate with Briining, whose fall was already virtually
accomplished, and whose successor, whom he named, would
be more amenable to deal with. There followed telephone
conversations between Berlin, Paris, and Geneva and, as
a result, M. Tardieu made more of an attack of laryngitis
than he might otherwise have done, regretfully refusing the
urgent invitation of Mr. Norman Davis to return to Geneva.

Nor was there anyone at Geneva, save Briining, who
appreciated the stark tragedy of the position. To send the
Chancellor back to Berlin without a definite agreement was
to sign his pohtical death-warrant and to play unreservedly
into the hands of Hitler. Yet the statesmen of Europe
adopted this course with calm equanimity and were
astonished at the results. Within two years they would have
made any sacrifice to have again before them the Briining
formula in all its fairness and restraint, for, what they
had refused to Briining’s wisdom, they were to concede a
hundred-fold to Hitler’s blackmail. Never was Europe so
barren of statesmanship as at this moment.

Bruning returned wearily to Berlin on May 1, to find an
atmosphere fetid with the breath of intrigue. He reported
to Hindenburg on the fate of the Geneva negotiations and
found the President distinctly cool towards him. Yet within
an hour the obvious sincerity of the Chancellor had wrought
a change in Hlndenburg’s attitude; he grew warmer and
friendlier, complimented Briining on his success concerning
the disarmament question, and took leave of him, clasping
his hand between his own. Later, walking with Meissner in
the garden of the Palace, Hindenburg said: “Bruning has

384 WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

really done wonderfully well; we must keep on with, him to
the end”.

Schleicher also received the Chancellor with fair and
honeyed words. The reason was not far to seek. The Reichs-
tag was about to convene on May 9, and before it was a
Finance Bill of great importance, providing credits which,
once voted, would make any government secure for a year.
Bruning alone could obtain the passage of this bill, and
hence the coup de grace must be postponed.

The Finance Bill was safely piloted through stormy waters
and was followed by the rejection of a motion of no con-
fidence in the Government. Then, with dramatic swiftness,
Schleicher dropped the mask and began to pull the strings
of his puppets. Hindenburg’s attitude changed once more —
the old weather-cock was veering from point to point in
these fatal days — and just after the Finance Bill was passed,
he warned Bruning that he would at once summon the party
leaders to form a new Cabinet. Bruning rephed that he
would hke to go at once to the Reichstag and amiounce the
President’s intention. Hindenburg immediately abandoned
the idea. At the same moment, in the Reichstag, the
Nationalist deputies, taking their cue from Hindenburg’s
letter of April 16, urged fiercely upon Grbner the suppres-
sion of the Reichshanner. Groner was a sick man, his voice
was faihng, yet, in a speech full of courage and determina-
tion, dehvered in the teeth of continued interruption, he
refused to take action against an organization which he
beheved to be neither dangerous nor subversive.

The sequel was swift and dramatic. As Groner concluded
his speech and sank exhausted into his chair, Schleicher
and Hammerstein appeared beside him on the ministerial
bench, and with cold brutahty informed him that he no
longer enjoyed the confidence of the Reichswehr and must
resign immediately.^ Groner was thunderstruck. He had

^ Not till years later did tie army leaders who iad been consulted
by telephone realize that Schleicher had duped them and lied in his

AVEIMAE AND NEtTDECK

385

cherislied Schleicher as a son and had purposed resigning
the Ministry of Defence to him in the near future. Over-
whelmed by such desertion and treachery, he appealed to
Hindenburg, but, as he might have known, the Marshal
“could do nothing for him”. It was the inevitable sequel to
Spa and to Kolberg, and to Greiner had come the fate of
Ludendorff, of Wilhelm II, and of others. Yet, in his hour
of hitter humiliation, there came a crumb of consolation. By
devious means there came to him a remark which the Em-
peror had made to a member of his suite in Doom: “Tell
Groner he has my full sympathy; I always expected that this
would happen”. Wilhelm II had not forgotten Spa, but he
Imew now where the responsibility lay.

A week after Groner’s fall Briining sent for Schleicher,
and gave himself the satisfaction of telhng the General
frankly what he thought of him. He also told him that,
having undermined the confidence of the army in Groner,
he must take over the Defence Ministry himself.

“I wiU,” Schleicher rephed, “but not in your Govern-
ment.” In the Chancellor’s library, that same room in which
Bismarck had planned the greatness of the German Em-
pire, they talked for hours, each unwilling to break off the
battle; Bruning because he had long desired to speak his
mind to this man, Schleicher because he hated to leave the
field to Bruning. They made a strange contrast, these two
who had fought through the war, and wore each the Iron
Cross, Eirst Class. Briining, the scholar-paladin, with the
light of honest anger shining in his eyes, and Schleicher, the
dandy officer, who could not meet the stern gaze of the
other.

At last, as the light of a new day struggled through the
curtained windows, Bruning brought the conversation to a

representation of tte case against Groner. Many of them subsequently
sought out the latter in his retirement and explained sadly that, had
they been fuUy and accurately informed of the facts, they would never
have thus deserted him.

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WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

close on a note of proptecy. Sctileiclier was leaning against
a bookcase, his face pale and haggard, sweating slightly;
Briining stood in front of him.

“The difference between ns as soldiers”, he said, “was
that I fought in the line and you served on the Staff. In the
line, with the machine-gun corps, we learned to control our
nerves and to hold our fire sometimes till the enemy were
almost on us. At the end of the war it was G.H.Q., not the
army, that lost its head in a panic. We would have fought
on, it was you who threw up your hands. And when the time
comes, you, G-eneral von Schleicher, will give up your battle
before it is lost and you will become caught in your own
intrigues.”

At that moment, standing upon the threshold of his own
defeat, Briining appeared to have been gifted with the
power of second sight, for within six months Schleicher had
risen to the highest ofS.ce and fallen therefrom, and in two
years he had been murdered, a victim of his own scheming.

With the resignation of Groner on May 12, the life of the
Briining Cabinet began to ebb swiftly away. Nor did
Schleicher give it breathing-space to nurse its wounds. Lest
the Chancellor should exercise his influence on the President,
Hindenburg was again hurried off to Neudeck. Before the
President left Berlin, Briining informed him in detail of the
negotiations then in process between the Centre Party and
the Nazis for the formation of a government in Prussia. The
great anxiety of all was that while the National Socialists
should receive a taste of the burden of government, they
should not gain control of the Prussian police force, and, to
obviate any danger of this, Briining had prepared a decree
whereby the police of all the Federal States, with the excep-
tion of Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, and Baden, should be placed
under the Reich Ministry of Interior. It was his further
plan to unite the premiership of Prussia with the office of
the Chancellor, as had been the case under Bismarck, but
he did not yet consider the moment ripe for this step.

■VVEIMAR AND NEUDECK

387

To these suggestions Hindenburg listened with a certain
interest but with little enthusiasm. Even with these safe-
guards he declined definitely to give the Nazis power in
Prussia, believing, on the advice of Schleicher, that the
Nazis might be prepared to tolerate a new government in
the Reich and in Prussia without participating in it, on the
condition that the Storm Troopers should be reinstated.
In vain the Chancellor tried to persuade Hindenburg that
Hitler could never accept such a solution, which would
mean pohtical suicide for him. The President set aside this
argument with a single sentence : “I will have their word of
honour”. He closed the conversation by saying that he
needed time to consider these points, and, regardless of the
fact that every day was of vital importance to the plans
of his Chancellor, he gave him strict orders that no further
decrees were to be promulgated and no changes made in
either the Reich or Prussian Cabinets tiU his return.

The air of Berhn hummed with rumour and intrigue; one
paper gave a list of the conspirators against the Government,
which even included the private secretary of the Chancellor,
who had previously been an officer of Schleicher’s. The
General was in continual touch with the Nazis — Goebbels’
diary, which, though unreliable generally as a chronicle,
may be trusted in this respect, shows that throughout the
month the leaders of the party were in constant communica-
tion with Schleicher and other “gentlemen of the President’s
circle” — and by the fourth week of May not only the date
of the Chancellor’s dismissal was known to them, but also the
composition of the new Cabinet. Bruning himself heard of it
at a reception given in honour of the eldest son of Ibn Saud,
when he was told that the French Ambassador had blandly
asked a journahst when Herr von Papen would take office.

Through this veil of darkness there shone one slender ray
of hope for Bruning. Tardieu had fallen in the General Elec-
tion of May 8, and there was just the chance that his
successor, Herriot, might prove more receptive of the pro-

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WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

posals whicli the Chancellor had put forward at Geneva.
Briining knew that Mr. Gibson, the American Minister at
Brussels, was keeping in close touch with the situation, and
might prevail on the new French Government to reopen
negotiations on this basis. Fortified by this shght hope, he
continued his preparations for the Lausanne Conference,
now only six weeks away, and at the same time took further
steps to safeguard the economic fife of Germany.

Among the new measures which the Chancellor was now
about to bring forward were the final steps to readjust the
budget of the municipalities and the Social Insurance in-
stitutions. It was considered to be the last step on the road
of deflation which was forced upon Germany by the large
withdrawal of foreign short-term capital. As stocks were
liquidated, and as since February the orders on the books
of the large industrial Jfirms had increased, the Chancellor
thought that the time was ripe to start with a moderate
credit expansion, and to finance by that means new employ-
ment. Two special measures were considered as most urgent:
the reconstruction of roads and the breaking-up of banlcrupt
estates in the Eastern Provinces. This was the celebrated
plan for the expropriation, with generous compensation,
of certain bankrupt estates and the settlement thereon of
smaU-holders, or their use for afforestation. Despite the
protests and threats of the Landbund, Briining had per-
sisted with his measure as being essential to the whole
agricultural situation in Germany, and he now included it
in the batch of decrees which Meissner was to take to
Neudeck for the President’s consideration.

In the calmer atmosphere of his estate Hindenburg had
again swung around to the side of his Chancellor, and when
Meissner returned to Berlin he was able to tell Briining that
the President had provisionally consented to sign the
decrees. Briining thought of going to Neudeck to talk over
the whole situation with the Old Man, but Meissner dis-
suaded him, pointing out that the President would now be

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

389

prepared to sign the decrees. The President would be re-
turning to the Palace in a couple of days, he said, and it
would be better if the Chancellor waited till then to see him.
He himself was not going back to Neudeck. Briining agreed,
and to this day it is uncertain whether Meissner was honest
in his advice. Was he keeping Briining from the President
in order that further influence, unfavourable to the Chan-
cellor, might be brought to bear on him, or was he for the
moment satisfied that Bruning’s interests were better served
by awaiting the Old Gentleman’s arrival in Berlin ? Here
lies one of the impenetrable mysteries with which this
period of German history is beset, but, whatever the answer,
the sequel was significant.

Whether Meissner told Schleicher of the change in Hinden-
burg’s attitude, or whether the conversation with Briining
was reported to the General by one of the spies which he
maintained in the Chancellor’s office, is for practical pur-
poses immaterial. The important fact was that Schleicher
that night (May 26) left secretly for Neudeck to Avind the
President up once more for the final overthrow of the
Chancellor. History was repeating itself ironically. Just
sixteen years before, in the summer of 1916, Ludendorff
and Hoffmann had administered a last '’‘gingering-up” to
Hindenburg before that final journey to Pless, which was to
end in the faU of Falkenhayn; so now Schleicher worked on
the Marshal’s feelings and briefed him for the interview
which was to mark the faU of Briining. The scene and the
supernumerary actors had changed; only the central figure
remained, outlasting them aU, gigantic and, seemingly,
immortal.

Yet, between this secret visit to Neudeck and the fiual
sequel three days later, there occurred another event which,
almost incomprehensible in its nature, enhances the enigma
of Kurt von Schleicher. The General was not entirely certain
of the success of his mission to the President. He had found
Hindenburg even better disposed towards Briining than

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WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

lie had feared, and, though the Old Gentleman had listened
to Schleieher’s arguments and had appeared to agree with
them, Schleicher was uncertain as to how far the President
had become convinced of the necessity of dismissing the
Chancellor. He knew very well — who better? — how change-
able was the mind of Bbndenburg, and he was by no means
sure what the state of that mind would be when Hindenburg
returned to Berhn, nor how it would be afiected by a
conversation with Briining.

Scarcely had Schleicher reached the capital on May 28,
therefore, when he made certain advances to Briining for a
reconcihation. It was the old story of changing his coat
when he thought his position was endangered. He was no
friend of the Nazis and no friend of Bruning’s, but he feared
that, if Briining should regain the confidence of the President,
his own position would be appreciably weakened. But this
time things had gone too far, and Briining, though he had
always pitied Schleicher rather than hated him, could not
agree to forgive and forget. He knew weU enough that the
General would change again on the shghtest provocation
and with as httle warning or hesitation.

To Schleicher’s emissary herephed, therefore, that, if the
General could discover a way to start again the negotiations
between the Centre and the Nazis in Prussia, which by his
intrigues with Rohm he had so flagrantly destroyed, the
Chancellor would receive him, but he must have Schleicher’s
answer by the evening. By this means Briining had avoided
a trap and placed Schleicher on the defensive, for the General
was too astute not to realize that by his own actions he had
rendered all hope of resuming negotiations in Prussia impos-
sible. Rebuffed and furious, Schleicher then devoted his
whole energy to maintaining Hindenburg’s mind and soul in
opposition to his Chancellor.

On May 28 Schleicher and Meissner were not at all sure
about the definite decision of the President. Meissner went
to see the Chancellor and asked him , if he was prepared

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK 391

to stay in office on condition tfiat tfie President would
guarantee fiim that the Nationalist and. National Socialist
Parties would tolerate him. The Chancellor was not sure if
this ofier was not a trap for him. He replied that toleration
of a government by the National Sociahsts was in his eyes
not a realistic proposition. He had no intention of changing
the Government in the Reich, but he was prepared to have
coalition Ministries in the Federal States, to find out if the
Nazis really were prepared to share responsibility, on con-
dition that nowhere should they have the police in their
hands. Meissner made it clear that the President wanted
the Chancellor to drop nearly all the members of his Cabinet.
This the Chancellor refused to do.

On the morning of Sunday, May 29, Bruning was sum-
moned to the presence. It would, he knew, be the final game
of the rubber, that long dreary contest in which he had
given all his strength ungrudgingly only to meet defeat at
the end. He was not, however, in view of Meissner’s message,
prepared for the coolness of his reception. Hindenburg
barely acknowledged his greeting. The Old Gentleman
seemed disconcerted and ill at ease, as he always was when
playing a part. He cut short Briining’s opening sentence,
and, putting on his spectacles, began to speak from a sheaf
of notes which shook in his old hands.

The two confronted each other, as they had so often done
before during those two fateful years; President and Chan-
cellor, Field-Marshal and machine-gun oflS.cer. Generations
and traditions separated them, and they moved in difierent
worlds, each speaking a language the other could not
understand. Yet with a strange veneration Bruning had
trusted and admired Hindenburg, and Hindenburg had
once showed confidence in Bruning. Now all that was
over, and Bruning was to follow the road over which
Wilhelm II, Ludendorff, Hoffmann, and Grbner had passed
before him.

The Marshal began to read a series of set statements

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WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

which had evidently been jotted down as headings and
notes for a more formal address.

“Yon have Bolshevik Ministers in your Government and
they persuade you to make this Bolshevik poHcy,” he began.
The reference was to Stegerwald.

The Chancellor started to reply, but Hindenburg cut
short his explanation. He went on rasping out his staccato
statements.

“The Government has not been authorized by me to
promulgate any new decrees.”

Again Bruning sought to answer, but again he was swept
aside. After the next remark, however, he waited and
allowed Hindenburg’s allegations to pass unchallenged.
When the Marshal had got to the end of his brief, Bruning
again began a defence of his policy and, for nearly an hour,
they argued back and forth. At the close, Bruning asked
a direct question. “Do you wish me to resign?” The Old
Gentleman would not give a direct answer. “It is against
my conscience to keep a Cabinet which is so unpopular; it
must go as soon as possible. But you must remain as Foreign
Minister in a new Government, as Stresemann did. That is
your duty.”

The parallel was an unfair one. Stresemann had never
been asked to abandon his friends and to keep oflBice himself.
He had never attained in internal affairs the same pre-
eminence as Bruning. Had it been a question of merely
maintaining a continuity of foreign policy, Bruning might
have remained, but to have done so under the given cir-
cumstances would have been to betray his colleagues. The
suggestion, which was undoubtedly Hindenburg’s own, was
typical of him, for in thus following the path of “duty”
himself he could have hushed his conscience in the clash of
loyalties. That Bruning rejected it, and with anger, was
equally characteristic; his friends came first with him and
his conception of loyalty was altogether different.

“I, too, have a conscience,” he retorted to the President,

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

393

“and it forbids me, at a moment when the State is in peril,
to change my mind every day.” And with that he took his
leave, a Chancellor ad interim.

The Cabinet met to decide its course of action, which,
after the interview with the President, could only be
resignation.

Dawn was already far advanced when Bruning retired to
rest, yet by half-past 8 he was again at his writing-table.
The day was perfect — a May morning of blue and gold, a
day on which things should have not an end but a beginning.
Sixteen years before on a May evening, shrouded in mist,
the fleets of Britain and Germany had fought at Jutland
and the issue had been acclaimed a victory by both. In
honour of this engagement the guard at the President’s
Palace was mounted by naval ratings for the week of the
anniversary, and at this noon of May 30, 1932, they would
take over from the Reichswehr. The thought crossed Brun-
ing’s mind as he sat at his table, but his attention was in-
stantly diverted by the voice of his secretary. The American
Ambassador, it appeared, wished to see him immediately
upon urgent business. By 9 o’clock the Ambassador was
with him and Fate had dealt Bruning a further ironic blow.

That for which he had dreamed and planned was at last
within his grasp and now he was powerless to seize it. For
the news which the Ambassador brought was none other
than that France had reconsidered her view on disarma-
ment. Hugh Gibson had met Herriot at Lyons and had
there persuaded him that the proposals, which Bruning had
made at Geneva and which Tardieu had refused to discuss,
presented in reality a sound and honest basis of negotiation.
He had written as much to the Ambassador, who had come
at once to Bruning, in view, as he said, of the internal and
external importance of the news to the Chancellor. For the
purport of Mr. Gibson’s message was; “Persuade Bruning to
return to Geneva as soon as possible, for there is every
prospect of his speedy success there”.

394

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

Here is one of the great “ifs” of history. Had Mr. Gibson’s
news arrived but twenty-four hours earher, the destiny of
Germany, and of Europe, might well have been changed,
and the name of Bruning might have been numbered
amongst those great ones who succeeded, instead of among
those who went down fighting. Now, however, he could
only thank the Ambassador for his swift action and com-
municate the news to the permanent head of the Foreign
Office.

But hardly had the Ambassador taken his leave when the
purport of his visit was known to Meissner and Schleicher.
The latter’s spies were everywhere and the Chancellor’s own
room was not free from their surveyance. The Camarilla,
who knew the President as well as, or even better than, the
Chancellor, at once took action to prevent Bruning from
using this new information to win once more the confidence
of PQndenburg. A sudden telephone message informed the
Chancellor that his audience had been postponed from 10.30
to 11.55 — and at noon it was the Marshal’s habit to inspect
the Shagerakwache.

Bruning saw what would happen. He was to be dismissed
without a hearing and he prepared to accept his fate with
dignity. With head held high and erect as if on parade,
perhaps again, in his imagination, wearing field-grey, he
stood before the Marshal at the appointed hour. Hinden-
burg spoke no word of compunction or gratitude; he
mumbled his sentences, and spoke again of duty and
honour and his conscience. But now it was Bruning who
cut him short.

“I too have my name and my honour, Herr Reichs-
prdsident, and I give you the resignation of my
Cabinet.”

As Hindenburg began to reply, an aide-de-camp entered,
from without came the blare of trumpets of the Skagerak-
wache, and the tramp of their feet sounded in the court
below. The Old Man grasped his stick and started for the

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

395

door; as lie passed Bruning witliout a glance, he muttered,
“Now I can have a Cabinet of my friends”.

And the man who had been “the best Chancellor since
Bismarck” walked out into the sunhght of the garden with
the sound of the trumpets in his ears.^

9

Franz von Papen. This was the name which, for weeks
past, Schleicher had been whispering into the ears of his
fellow conspirators. To the President, to the Herrenklub, to
the Landbund, to the Nationahsts, to the Nazis, and to the
French Ambassador, Schleicher had commended Papen as
the man whom Germany most needed at this moment, by
which he meant the man who would best do his, Schleicher’s,
bidding, for the General fancied himself as a maker and
breaker of Chancellors.

Fifty-three years old at the time, Franz von Papen had
already been a figure, if a notorious one, in international
affairs. As military attache at Washington he had been ex-
pelled in 1916, with his naval colleague. Captain Boy-Ed, for
actmties of sabotage in American munition works and other
abuses of diplomatic privileges. Deported to Germany, Papen
made the error of beheving that his personal safe-conduct
also covered his luggage. The ship on which he was travel-
ling was stopped and searched by a British warship, and

1 Having had practically no rest for a week, Brnning went immedi-
ately to bed and slept for nearly twenty-four hours on end. When he
awoke it was to find a further ironic repetition of history As, in 1917,
the Supreme Command had ofiered the Embassy at Constantinople to
the fallen Bethmann Hollweg, so now the new Government requested
Briimng to become Ambassador in London. In each case the refusal was
the same, and because of his unwillingness to be removed from the politi-
cal sphere, the new Foreign Minister allowed a rumour to reach the press
that Bruning was sufiering from a nervous breakdown. This was com-
pletely untrue The writer was with the ex-Chancellor within a week of
his dismissal and was particularly struck by his good health and spirits.

396

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

amongst his correspondence was discovered the Ml proof
of his guilt, the details of his work with Secret Service
agents in America and the counterfoils of the cheques with
which they had been paid. All this material was made pubhc
in a White Paper, but additions to the collection were
thoughtfully contributed by Papen himself. Arrived back
in Germany, he wrote to friends treating the matter lightly,
as the British could not know of certain other contacts,
which he named; this letter in turn fell into hands for which
it was not meant.

It may be justifiably argued that such a background was
scarcely a qualification to take over control of the destinies
of Germany at a moment of acute tension. But Papen’s
American achievements were practically unknown to his
own countrymen, who learnt of them with interest and sur-
prise when pubhshed by the press of the world on his ap-
pointment as Chancellor.

In Germany Papen was known as a member of the West-
phahan Cathohc nobihty, who by marriage had acquired
large industrial interests in the Saar territory. Primarily,
however, his claim to fame was as a gentleman rider, and a
prominent member of the Herrenreiter-Verbaiid and of the
Union-Klub. In truth he was an excellent and fearless horse-
man, but with an unfortunate penchant for rushing his
fences, a tendency which he carried into his pohtical life. As
a member of the Centre Party he had been elected to the
Prussian Landtag, but had failed to earn the confidence of
his colleagues to any marked degree. At one moment there
was a proposal to put him on the fist for election to the
Reichstag, but this met with unyielding opposition from the
veteran leader of the Party.

“But why do you object so strongly to Herr von Papen?”
his supporters asked.

“I am too old to have to give reasons,” was the reply,
“but I will not have him in the Reichstag.”

- Witty, excellent company, and of very considerable per-

WEIMAE AM) NEUDECK

397

sonal charm, Papen was a well-known favourite in the social
world and in such poHtical circles as the Herrenhlub of
Berhn, and it was here that Schleicher picked him as his
nominee to succeed Briining. In making his choice he had
a number of factors in mind. Papen was a member of the
Centre and played a certain part in the direction of the party
journal, Germania. By replacing one Centrist Chancellor by
another, it was Schleicher’s plan to split the party and
thereby destroy it as a pohtical factor. In addition, tlnough
his wife’s interests in the Saar, Papen had many intimate
contacts with the French and was an ardent exponent of the
idea of a Franco-German industrial rapprochement and a
mihtary alhance against the Soviet Union. Here lay a reason
for Sclileicher’s advice to the French Ambassador that
Briining’s successor would prove more amenable to French
pohcy.

This, then, was the Man of Shadows whom Schleicher
brought to Hindenburg in exchange for the great person-
ality of Heinrich Briining, and the President accepted him
without demur. Well might Briining reflect bitterly that
“Hindenburg thinks no more of taking on a new Chancellor
than of changing his Chief of Stafi”. But to the President
himself he was more subtle. On the occasion of his formal
caU of resignation some days later, he told the Marshal he
was dehghted to see him in such good health, as he wordd
need aU his strength for the trials that were ahead of him.

One of the more extraordinary episodes of Hindenburg’s
long life is his relation with Papen, for, of the seven Chan-
cellors who served him, there is no doubt that none so
much enjoyed his confidence as did this strange little man.
With the volatflity of a bird, the subUme confidence of the
amateur, and the ineffable valour of ignorance, “Franzchen”
won the heart of the Old Man, where Muller, Marx, and
Briining had failed, and retained his affection to the end.
Indeed, Papen owes his fife to Hindenburg.

Their first contact had been fortunate. Hindenburg

O T\

398

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

recollected — or it was recalled to him by his “ofhcial
remembrancer” — ^the telegram which Papen had sent him
on his fiist election in 1926, and he was attracted by the
fact that, in contrast to Briining, Papen had for years
endeavoured to break the coimection of the Centre Party
with the Left and to build up a Catholic Conservative
movement. Hindenburg was pleased with the personal
charm of Papen. Here was another sort of soldier, not
the cold realistic view of the machine-gun ofi&cer, but the
debonair gaiety of the cavalry captain. Papen made the
Old Gentleman laugh, he took him back to his own young
days as a subaltern. Moreover he flattered him, as Briining
had never done, and traded on the natural patronizing
affection of the very old for the no longer young.

The Marshal entered almost enthusiastically into this
new erperiment in government and set about picking his
Cabinet with a reawakened zest. The Chancellor invited
nearly aU. the members of the Briining Cabinet, whose
resignation two days earher the President had urged, to
join his new Cabinet. He received unanimous refusals,
whereupon the President forced Civil Servants to accept
seats in the Cabinet. To one he appealed on his knightly
oath as a Wiirttemberg nobleman, to another on his oath
as a Prussian officer, while in the case of a third, a com-
petent Civil Servant who doubted his abiUty to assume
Cabinet responsibihties, the President gave six hours
in which to decide whether he would accept promotigir
or dismissal. As a result, on June 1, the new Presidential
Government was announced to an astonished world.
Within six weeks of his re-election by over nineteen milli on
votes of the Left and Centre, Hindenburg appointed a
Cabinet of which seven Ministers were of the nobility with
defimtely Right affiliations, and in which, for the first time
since 1918, there was no representative of organized labour.
To such an extremity had the path of duty led him.

The new Government, in which Schleicher, as Minister of

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

399

Defence, was tlie dominant force, tad no support in tte
Reichstag apart from the Nationalist Party, for the Centre
had remained solidly loyal to Briining and had by a unani-
mous vote expelled Papen from its midst. The Chancellor
depended upon the goodwill of the President, the armed
forces of the State, and the unrehable backing of the National
Socialists, who were prepared to “tolerate” the new regime
in return for the promise of the raising of the ban on the
S.A. and S.S., and of new elections in which they justifiably
expected to make great gains. It was with this promise of
toleration, which Schleicher and Meissner had extractedfrom
Hitler, that Schleicher had made such play in persuading
Hindenburg to appoint the new Government. Briining had
failed either to control, placate, or destroy the Nazi Party;
Schleicher and Papen, the General had promised Hinden-
burg, would certainly achieve either the first or the last,
but to do either it was necessary to use the middle course.

From Hitler’s point of view the plan was eminently
satisfactory. He received much and gave little in return,
for he regarded the whole affair merely as a means whereby
his Trojan Horse might gain admission within the walls.
Once this was accomplished. Hitler would unhesitatingly
break the pledges given to his aUies. Had either Papen or
Schleicher taken the trouble to study that illuminating
work Mein Kampf, they would have found therein, set out
for all to read, the Fuhrer’s thesis that “The Strong Man is
strongest when alone”, and had they read further they
might web. have hesitated before trusting the word of a
political leader who so frankly stated that “no really great
achievement has ever been effected by coalitions, but has
been due to the triumph of one individual man . . . the
national State, therefore, will only be created by the
adamantine wiU-power of a single movement, after that
movement has won through, haAung defeated all others”.

Hindenburg, however, was delighted with the new turn
of events. He now moved once more among those whom

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WEIMAE, AND NEUDECK

once he had called his friends but who subsequently had re-
viled him. The former generals and officials of the old regime
now flocked to the Palace, and the President again became
the venerable and respected head of the Nationalists. No
wonder his afiection went out toward the Chancellor who
had efiected this reconciliation. Papen had indeed become
the “white-headed boy” of the Palace. Nevertheless the
President was shrewd enough to doubt the capability of the
new Chancellor. On the very day of the latter’s nomination he
told a visitor: “Now at least I have a Cabinet of my friends,
but I am afraid it will not function under this Chancellor”.

The President saw clearly that the Chancellor had
singularly little following in the country, and no previous
Government had showed itself to be so bankrupt of original
ideas as this “Cabinet of Barons”. Its entire foreign policy
was inherited from its predecessor, Papen reaping the
reward that should have been Briining’s; while at home he
could do no more than put into force the decrees found
ready drafted in the pigeon-holes of Bruning’s writing-
table. The only original contribution made by the Papen
Government itself was the singular lack of adroitness with
which the measures were executed.

From the first there was little pretence of toleration by
the Nazis. Their relations with the Government became
strained almost at once, when the withdrawal of the
prohibition of the S.A. and S.S. was delayed for a fortnight
after the change of regime. Both Papen and Schleicher-
were taken seriously to task by Hitler for this delay, and
were warned that resentment against the Government and
discontent were rising in the ranks of the party. Nor was
this criticism allayed by Papen’s personal success at
Lausanne, where, as a result of Bruning’s diplomacy, he
achieved the cancellation of reparations, except for the
nominal payment of three milliard marks. The extreme
elements in the Nazi Party took advantage of this oppor-
tunity to make a fierce attack on the Government. At a

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

401

mass meeting of over a hundred thousand on July 9, in
front of the Berlin Schloss, Count Helldorf declared that
the confidence which many Germans had given to the
Papen Government had been misplaced. “Revealing in-
comprehensible weakness, Herr von Papen has approved
proposals which we hberty-loving Germans never endorsed” ;
and Goebbels added that the National Socialist Party did
not consider itself bound by the Lausanne Agreement,
since Papen had no authority to sign it.

Disturbed at this attitude on the part of those whom he
had been assured would support him loyally, Papen took
measures calculated both to appease the Nazis and to de-
monstrate his own independence of spirit. On July 28 the
German Government made a protest — all too well justified,
alas — against the disregard of the Disarmament Conference
for German aspirations for equality, and threatened to
withdraw from the Conference altogether if more con-
sideration were not given to German aims, a threat which
was made good two months later. It was hoped that this
step would increase the prestige of the Government both
at home and abroad, where Papen had failed signally to
win that confidence which Herriot had been prepared to
give to Bruning.

Papen’s second manceuvre was intended to please the
Nazis and at the same time to steal their anti-Marxist
thunder. Since the Prussian elections of April 24, in which
the Left had lost heavily to the Nazis, the Sociahst Cabinet of
Braun and Severing had continued to discharge the functions
of government pending the formation of a further coahtion.
For, though they were the largest party in the Diet, the
National Sociahsts had no clear majority, and only by ally-
ing themselves with the Centre could they form a govern-
ment. For months abortive negotiations had taken place
and, in the meantime, the Socialist ministers acted ad
interim, confining themselves to the maintenance and con-
duct of routine business. To overthrow the Braun Govern-

402

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

mentj thought Papen, would serve a number of useful ends.
It would please the President, who, since the formation of
the new Cabinet, had turned his back upon his electors of
three months before; it would placate the Nazis, who could
scarcely oppose any assault upon Marxism, and it would,
at the same time, take the wind from their sails; more im-
portant than all, however, it would place the control of the
Prussian police, one of the most efficient forces in the world,
in the hands of the Government of the Reich.

Among the draft decrees and proposals which Papen
had inherited from his predecessor was one which outlined
a form of government in Prussia whereby the office of
Prime Minister was vested in the Chancellor of the Reich.
Braim himself had offered to resign the Prussian Premier-
ship to Briining, if such an identification of offices would
prove an added bulwark against National Sociahsm, and,
though the Chancellor had then refused, he had prepared a
plan by which the Nazis might one day be given a share of
responsibility, but only with the police and the Premiership
safely in the hands of the Reich.

It was this plan that Papen now found and put into
force, regardless either of its significance or its original
intention. There resulted, on July 20, the Rape of Prussia,
and one of the dreams of old Oldenburg-Januschau came
true. From the earliest beginnings of parliamentary govern-
ment in Germany, that veteran had declared that the
Reichstag must never get so strong that it could not be
turned out by a lieutenant and ten men. He had now hved"
to see his prophecy fulfilled.

Papen, Schleicher, and Meissner brought the news to
Hindenburg that Braun’s Government was conducting
affairs without parliamentary authority and was particularly
tolerant of the activities of the Communist Party in Prussia.
It was therefore proposed to dismiss them summarily, if
necessary evicting them by force, and to replace them by a
Cabinet of officials presided over by Papen himself as Prime

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK 403

Minister and Reichskommissar, with. Dr. Franz Bracht, the
Bhrgermeister of Essen, as his deputy.

Hindenburg forgot that the man against whom this coup
was being directed, Otto Braun, had pleaded with him to
remain President, and, with Briining, had worked feverishly
for his re-election. He did not concern himself with the
legahty of the proposed action. He was becoming obsessed
with a loathing of the word Marxist, loosely used by his
entourage to describe anyone from a rabid Communist to
an innocuous pacifist, and he dishked the feeling of obliga-
tion. He owed his re-election to the efiorts of Briining and
Braun, and to the votes of the Centre and the Socialists.
Briining had gone, Braun must go, and Prussia, Hinden-
burg’s Prussia, must be purged of the Socialist taint which
had held to it for the past twelve years.

The President’s agreement was, therefore, gladly given
to the plans of Papen and Schleicher. Martial law was pro-
claimed throughout the miUtary district of the Mark, the
Sociahst Ministers were dismissed, and those of them and of
their officials who refused to leave were placed under arrest.
Among them was the Berhn Prefect of Police, that same
Grzesinski who, at Cassel in November 1918, had wel-
comed the defeated Marshal with the words: “Hindenburg
is f ulfillin g his duty to-day in a manner which endears bim
to us as never before. Hindenburg belongs to the German
nation. ...” The Marshal was still doing his duty, but some-
how it had ah got a little mixed.

Within a week practically every outspoken Republican
in the upper ranks of the Prussian Administration had been
peremptorily turned out of office and replaced by a man of
the Right. Even former officials, who had lost their position
in 1920 through comphcity in the Kapp 'putsch, were re-
instated in office. The Weimar Constitution, which Hinden-
burg had twice sworn to defend, was rocking upon its
foundations, and the blows that assailed it were struck with
his authority and consent. He was now firmly convinced

404

WEIMAR AKD NEUDEGK

that only by presidial government, apart from and above
the Reichstag, could Germany be saved. It was his duty,
his friends never ceased to teU him so, to rescue Germany
from the Marxist danger which threatened to undermine
her moral life, and, if the existing Constitution could
not protect Germany, then another must be devised.
Papen sought to allay the fears of the purists by promis-
ing that any reforms would only be applied in a legal
manner, but the real intention of the group surrounding
the President was voiced again by that incorrigible octo-
genarian die-hard, Oldenburg-Januschau, who, having, with
the revival of oligarchy, taken on a new lease of life, de-
clared pubhcly that he and his friends would “brand the
German people with a new Constitution that would take
away its sight and hearing”.

To many it came as a surprise that the forces of Social
Democracy had not shown greater fight in defence of their
principles, and particularly in the case of Prussia. Here
again the hand of Schleicher is to be found. He had always
been on good terms with the Trade Union leaders and had
looked upon their organizations as the reservoirs of man-
power on which almost unlimited draughts could be made.
But, like most of the General’s friends, they sufiered from
his duplicity. Schleicher, when the Papen Government took
office, assured the Trade Union Readers that he was in no
way planning to bring the National Sociahsts into power. AU
that he proposed to give them was the right to reorganize
the S.A. and S.S. Nothing more. Indeed, said Schleicher, he"
was far more the friend of the Trade Unions than of the
Nazis. His real aim, he declared, was to get rid of the Reichs-
tag and to replace it by a form of corporative parliament,
based largely upon the Trade Unions. It was no longer
possible to save the pohtical parties, which were doomed
through their own ineptitude, but their place must be
taken by the great gmlds of organized labour, in whose
hands the constitutional powers of Parliament must he.

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

405

With, these promises and visions Schleicher was able to
spht the forces of the Left, for, whereas the Social Democrat
Party frankly disbeheved him and set about putting their
mihtant organization, the Reichsbanner, on a fighting basis,
the Trade Union leaders were beguiled by his words. The
spell even lasted after the Rape of Prussia. The Social
Democrats were prepared to caU a general strike immedi-
ately, to meet force with force, but the Trade Union leaders,
still trusting bhndly in the word of Schleicher, prevailed
upon their members to wait for the promised millennium.

Despite aU his efforts to woo his “tolerant” allies, Papen
failed signally to win them. In the course of the campaign
which preceded the General Election of July 31 , 1932 , the
Nazis assailed the Government with as much enthusiasm
as did the Sociahsts, the Communists, and the Centre, and
“Down with the Cabinet of Barons” became an election
slogan common to aU parties save the Nationahsts.

One member of the Government alone escaped the insults
of the Nazis. General von Schleicher was notably omitted
from all attacks on his ministerial colleagues. Though Hitler
despised Papen and had broken his troth with him, he still
had a use for the man who, as Minister of Defence, con-
trolled the mihtary power of Germany and who had over-
thrown Briining and Groner for the sake of the Brown
Army. The Fuhrer had ambitions for the future which he
intended that Schleicher should help him to fulfil.

At the close of a campaign in which violence of every kind
was more prevalent than at any time since 1918 — ^in the
street fighting at Altona on July 17 , for example, twelve
Nazis and Communists were killed — the result of the polls
was a stalemate. The National Sociahsts, though they
increased the number of them deputies from 107 to 230 ,
two-fifths of the whole house, were not able to add very
greatly to the number of votes which Hitler had polled in
the second presidential ballot, whereas the Communists,
who captured 89 seats, becoming the third largest party in

406

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

the Reichstag, increased their poll by nearly two millions.
Yet the result was outstandingly a defeat for the Papen
Government. The Kationalists and the German People’s
Party, the only groups upon which it could unhesitatingly
depend for support, could muster only forty-four deputies
between them; whereas the Nazis in alliance with the 75
deputies of the Centre — if such support should be forth-
coming — could command an absolute majority and decide
the fate of any parliamentary government. On the other
hand, Hitler’s success gave him the claim that, even in
defiance of the Constitution and against the law, the Presi-
dent should appoint him to the Government and retain
him in it.

It was this line that the Fuhrer proposed to take. A few
days after the elections he had a rendezvous with Schleicher
at the barracks of Fiirstenberg and there outlined to him
the terms of an offer to be made to the President; for himself.
Hitler demanded the Chancellorship, and for his followers,
the Premiership of Prussia, the Reich and Prussian Minis-
tries of the Interior, and the Ministry of Justice. Schleicher
would remain Minister of Defence, and there was some talk
of the Vice-ChanceUorship. The name of Papen was not
mentioned in the shadow Cabinet.

Hitler was so weU satisfied with his conversation with
Schleicher that he seriously suggested that a memorial
tablet should be let into the wall of the house in which they
had talked; “Here the memorable conference between Adolf
Hitler and General von Schleicher took place”. In less than
two years’ time he had accepted the responsibihty for
Schleicher’s murder.

In the dehghted conviction that only a few days now
separated him from the Chancellorship, Hitler departed for
Munich, leaving Schleicher to make good his promises with
Hindenburg and Papen. Here the General found unexpected
but unyielding opposition. The President, as in all previous
years, refused to have a National Sociahst in the Govern-

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

407

ment, and Papen tad not tte sligttest intention of resign-
ing in Hitler’s favour. Quite unperturbed by the result
of tte elections, te was preparing to enjoy tte sweets of
office and to meet, wittout a programme or a plan, a
Beictstag almost wtolly tostile to tim. Moreover, the
President was now completely captivated by tte Chancellor.
His charm outshone even that of Schleicher, and Hinden-
burg had no thought of exchanging this delightful com-
panion for the wild eccentricities of Adolf Hitler. The
Marshal was deeply interested in the movement of national
awakening, and in more than one respect sympathized with
its ideals, but he regarded its leader, to whom, at this time,
he usually referred as “the Bohemian Corporal”, as a strange
and inexplicable phenomenon whose personality he frankly
and unrestrainedly disliked. The one formal interview which
Schleicher had arranged between the two men had left in
Hindenburg’s mind no vestige of confidence in or approval of
Hitler, and Papen, the latest of the Old Man’s “Jonathans”,
was for the moment secure.

Far from agreeing with Schleicher’s tentative suggestions,
Hindenburg was deeply displeased at the attacks made
upon Papen during the election, and it had not escaped his
notice that Schleicher had gone unscathed through the
campaign. He proposed to see the curious political fellow
again and teU him what he thought of him.

To Hitler in Munich, therefore, there came a telegram
summoning him to Berlin to an interview with the President
on August 13, 1932. It could mean but one thing. Schleicher
had carried out his plans, Papen was about to resign, and
he, Adolf Hitler, former corporal and house-painter, would
become Chancellor of the German Reich. The united com-
mand of the hundred thousand Reichswehr and of his own
haK million Brown legionaries would be his; the control of
Germany was within his grasp.

So Hitler came to Berbn and took up his quarters at the
Hotel Kaiserhof in the Wfihehnsplatz, a stone ’s-throw from

408

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

tKe Chancellery and the President’s Palace. With high
hopes he went to a preliminary conversation with Papen,
and here he met the first douche of disiUusioi^ent. For
Papen, secure in Hindenburg’s favour, had no intention of
resigning and told the Nazi leader so quite plainly. He
offered Hitler the position of Vice-Chancellor for himself,
and that of Prussian Minister of the Interior, which carried
with it control of the pohce, for one of his lieutenants.

Hitler was staggered. Papen had, then, not resigned and
Hindenburg was not about to make him Chancellor. The
Nazis were being fobbed off with offers of secondary posi-
tions. Hitler suddenly discovered that he was insulted. His
hysterical disposition got the better of him. He began to
speak; the sentences became a speech, the speech an oration,
and Hitler’s voice rose to the shrill key of the fanatic. He
stormed at Papen, demanding for himself as the idol of over
thirteen miUion voters that same degree of power which had
been granted to Mussolini after the March on Home. Here
arose a misunderstanding. To Papen, whose knowledge of
contemporary Italian history was scanty in the extreme, the
simile of the March on Rome conveyed the demand for the
supreme power of dictatorship. Hitler, however, who had
studied the rise of the Fascist Dictator with great care,
knew well that in Mussolini’s first Cabinet his followers were
in a minority, but held the key positions. He was also aware
that in a comparatively short space of time the Duce’s
original allies had disappeared from the scene.

The torrent of the Fiihrer’s rhetoric continued unchecked.
The Reichstag must enact an Enabling Bill giving his
Government full power. If such a Bill were rejected, the
Reichstag must be dissolved. Hitler passed on to what he
would do with this unlimited power once he had got it.

‘T consider it my duty to mow down the Marxists”, he
declared, and demanded that the S.A. should be given “three
clear days”.

Like old von Kahr in 1923, the highly civihzed and kind-

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

409

hearted Papen was horror-struck at the bloodthirsty sadism
of Hitler’s demands. He realized that with a man who can
only talk and will not hsten it is impossible to argue. The
business of putting Hitler in his place must be left to Hin-
denburg. He therefore suggested that further discussion was
useless, and that Hitler should put his views before the
President that afternoon. He refused to become the Fuhrer’s
emissary. Hitler must try himself to convince the Marshal.

In a cold fury, Hitler drove to luncheon with Groebbels
and Goring at the former’s house on the Peichskanzlerplatz.
Papen had betrayed him; he was beset with traitors and
plots, and snares were about his feet. Frick and Rohm
joined the party, and together they anxiously discussed
the situation. At three o’clock there came a telephone call
from the Chancellery. The voice of Erwin Planck, who had
been in turn stafi of&cer to Schleicher, private secretary to
Briining, and was now State Secretary to the Reichs-
kanzlei, stated that the President would receive Hitler in
an hour’s time. “Has a decision been arrived at already?”
Goebbels asked. “If so, there is no point in the FiiJirer’s
coming.” “The President wishes to see him first”, Planck
rephed.

A vague hope arose that perhaps Hindenburg had refused
to support Papen. Perhaps, after aU, Hitler would be Chan-
cellor before nightfall. With Wilhelm Frick and the per-
vert'Rohm, Hitler drove to the President’s Palace. If he had
really entertained any illusions since Planck’s telephone call,
they were instantly dispelled. He was confronted by a very
angry Old Gentleman, with a face of granite and a barking
voice, who shot a look of loathing and contempt at Rohm,
and did not ofier them chairs. Like a good strategist
Hindenburg took the ofiensive and got his word in first.
He outlined for Hitler’s benefit the programme which he
and the Chancellor proposed to put into force. Would
Hitler co-operate? Angrily and abruptly Hitler answered
that he had already given his views to Herr von Papen. He

410

WEIMAK AND NEUDECK

would co-operate with, the Government only as Chancellor.
Hindenburg, who had adopted Papen’s interpretation of the
Mussohni parallel, now understood Hitler to be repeating
his demand for dictatorship. “So you want the supreme
power?” he asked. But Hitler remained unexpectedly silent.
He was emotionally and physically exhausted with rage
and disappointment.

Having fought his opponent to a standstill, Hindenburg
proceeded to demohsh him with an admonition of great
severity. He refused Hitler’s demands definitely and ex-
plicitly, for he could not, he said, reconcile it with his con-
science and his duty to hand over the government of the
country to the exclusive control of the National Sociahst
Party, which would wield this power one-sidedly. He re-
gretted that Hitler did not see his way to keeping the
promises of toleration and co-operation which he had made
to the Government; and, in conclusion, he recommended
him to exercise a greater chivalry in his future campaigns.

With this dressing-down the Old Gentleman closed the
interview, which had lasted only fifteen minutes, and, as the
Nazis left the room, he turned to Meissner, stiU with the ring
of anger in his voice, saying, “That man for a Chancellor?
I’ll make him a postmaster, and he can hck the stamps with
my head on them.”

Now it was no longer a case of election hostihties but of
open war between the Nazis and the Government, and in
their attacks the President was included, for Hitler was ,
bitterly offended by the way in which Hiadenburg had out-
manoeuvred him and then lectured him lik e a naughty
schoolboy. The Fuhrer turned to the Centre with a proposal
for a coahtion Cabinet with himself as Chancellor. Hoping to
strike a chord of sympathy in Briining, in view of his treat-
ment by Hindenburg, Hitler suggested that a motion, jointly
sponsored by their two parties, should be forced through the
Beichstag, deposing the President and providing for a new
election. But, though Briining had Httle cause for personal

WEIMAE AKD NEUDECK

411

loyalty to Hindenburg, be was no Byzantine, and be re-
jected out of band so dramatic a means of revenge. For a
while tbe negotiations dragged on with tbe Nazis on tbe sub-
ject of tbe coabtion, but in tbe end no real basis of agree-
ment could be found.

Tbe singularly unlovely building in tbe Kdnigsplatz
wbicb boused tbe German Parbament for balf a century bad
seen few more curious episodes than that session of tbe
Eeicbstag wbicb opened on September 9 and closed three
days later. By tbe rules of procedure tbe oldest member, re-
gardless of party, presided at tbe first meeting at wbicb tbe
was elected for tbe session, and tbe Commun-
ists bad taken advantage of this to stage a demonstration.
Among their candidates at tbe election they bad included,
for this purpose alone, tbe name of Clara Zetkin, tbe eigbty-
four-year-old revolutionary, and bad elected her in absentia.
This remarkable old lady, who bad bved for a considerable
time in Moscow, made tbe journey to Berlin and insisted
upon exercising her privilege to preside. There she sat in
tbe Speaker’s chair, a grey, wizened Uttle figure, staring
down at a House of wbicb two-fiftbs wore tbe brown uni-
form of her inveterate opponents. Beside her stood Torgler,
tbe Communist parbamentary leader, stooping every now
and then to prompt her in tbe long discourse in defence of
Marxism wbicb quavered out in her weak old voice.

Whether in deference to tbe old lady’s courage or whether
held by tbe hopeless incongruity of tbe whole proceeding, tbe
House gave Frau Zetkin an almost uninterrupted bearing,
and only when she bad been lifted like a bundle from tbe
platform and conveyed carefully away, did tbe Reichstag
resume its usual appearance of a bear-garden. Amid tumult
and uproar Goring was elected to tbe Chair.

All Berbn was agog on tbe day of tbe first plenary meeting
on September 12. It bad been agreed among tbe party
leaders, none of whom wanted a new election, and between
them and tbe President of tbe Reichstag, that tbe House

412

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

should hear a declaration of the Government and then
adjourn for the week in order to give the Government a
chance of negotiating for a majority — ^it was known that,
some days before, Hindenburg had signed a draft decree of
dissolution which Papen could use in case of emergency.
Thus for the first time in history the death-warrant of a
Parliament had been signed before it had met. Papen was
perfectly prepared to go on having elections indefinitely in
the hope of wearing down the opposition. This was a short-
sighted policy, for, though the Nazis would in all probability
be the losers, such contests would undoubtedly hinder the
gradual economic recovery which had just begun, and, in
addition, would cause a general lack of confidence and a
sense of insecurity both at home and abroad.

But besides Papen’s decree there was Icnown to be a
further surprise development. The Communists, the one
group which might be expected to benefit by a continued
state of political uncertainty, intended to move a vote of
censure on the Government as an amendment to the Order
of the Day. AU other parties were united in considering this
a mischievous proceeding, and it was agreed between them
that the Nationahsts should oppose it formally, the objec-
tion of a single member being sufB.cient to prevent an
amendment of the Order of the Day without due notice.

With aU these rumours in the air the galleries of the House
were packed at an early hour. In the diplomatic hge Am-
bassadors and Ministers were crowded together, and the
press gallery buzzed with conjecture. AU expected dram^
but few were prepared for the farce which foUowed.

The Ministers ffled on to their bench and the great bulk
of Goring appeared in the President’s chair. The crack of
his gavel caUed the House to order with a start, and they
proceeded to the business of the day. Serene and smiling,
Papen sat back in his chair, with aU the appearance of
having something up his sleeve. He felt in complete com-
mand of the situation. Torgler, the Communist leader, rose

WEIMAR AMD NEUDECK

413

and proposed Hs motion. The House sat waiting for the
Nationalist objection. There was a dead silence, an anti-
climax. Hugenberg sat motionless in his place. To save the
situation Frick, the Nazi leader, sprang to his feet and
asked for a half-hour’s delay, and in a buzz of excitement
the House adjourned.

Hurried discussions took place in the Committee-rooms
and corridors, and it was discovered that at the last moment
the Nationalists had double-crossed their colleagues. Papen
had decided to dissolve the Reichstag, and it was in
agreement with him that Hugenberg, without warning his
fellow party leaders, had raised no objection to the Com-
munist motion. Indignation seethed and hostility to the
Government reached fever-pitch.

Meantime the Cabinet was also meeting in the building.
Papen called for the Red Portfolio in which the decree of
dissolution was traditionally conveyed to the Reichstag.
Again an anti-chmax and consternation; it was nowhere to
be found. Once more Herr von Papen had left his papers
behind! In an agony of apprehension Planck’s car fled
back through the Brandenburger Tor and up the Wilhelm-
strasse to retrieve the lost decree. With a few moments to
spare the Chancellor affixed his signature beneath that of
the President. They were saved!

As the House reassembled, the atmosphere of impending
drama was intensified. Again the Cabinet filed into their
places with Papen bringing up the rear and waving the Red
Portfolio with its precious contents at the diplomatic loge.
No sooner had Goring called the House to order than the
Chancellor demanded the word. But Goring chose to ignore
him and announced that the vote on the Communist motion
of censure would be taken. The voting began, and pande-
monium broke loose. Papen remained standing; Goring
continued to ignore him. White with anger, the Chancellor
handed the Red Portfolio to Planck, who laid it on the
President’s desk, whence it shpped to the ground. Then

2e

414

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

■without further ado, Papen and his Cabinet left the chamber.
The voting continued and the Government 'was declared to
have been censured by 513 to 32. In the uproar which
foUo'wed the vote, the Nationalists left the House; no one
kne'w what to do next, and, ha'^g declared the Govern-
ment overthrown, Goring adjourned the sitting.

It was in fact a very doubtful ser-vdce that the Reichstag
President had done his leader. The events of August 13, to
which Papen had given great publicity, had done little to
enhance the prestige of the Fiihrer or of the party in the
eyes of the electors, and the scene in the Reichstag, however
detrimental it may have been to parliamentary institutions,
had in no way redounded to the credit of the Nazis. More-
over the funds of the party were dangerously low, and the
usual sources of supply, such as the great industriahsts and
certain indmduals abroad, had not had their confidence
strengthened by the Potempa affair, in which a Communist
workman was brutally done to death by five Nazis, -with
whom Hitler had publicly proclaimed blood-brotherhood.

But, if Hitler had Uttle to hope from a new General
Election, the Papen Government, in so far as gaining a
parliamentary majority was concerned, had nothing to hope
at aU. The Chancellor, despite his tactical ■victories over
Hitler, had done nothing to recommend himseK or his
Government to the electorate. To be sure, he had the con-
fidence of the President, but the former electors of Hinden-
hurg, whether in 1926 or 1932, had grown wary of this
doubtful honour. His success at La'usanne had been dis--
counted in advance, as merely rendering permanent a
situation which had really existed since the Hoover Mora-
torium of 1931, and his gesture in withdrawing from the
Disarmament Conference had been received with apathy.

On the other hand, the high-handed pohcy of the Govern-
ment in regard to Prussia and the Reichstag had awakened
very grave misgi'vings in many quarters. The champions
of parhamentary government and of the sanctity of the

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

416

Constitution found themselves strangely allied with the
protagonists of State rights, who feared that a fate similar
to that of Prussia awaited their States; and indeed the
Government had planned a structural reform whereby all
but the three Southern States would be merged into the
Reich, thus strengthening still further the Central authority.

In the face of this growing opposition from all sides the
Papen Government sailed blithely into the November
General Election with the slogan, “Support our ideas or we
shall continue to govern alone until you do”; and the long-
sufiering electorate, which was now being appealed to for
the fifth time within a twelvemonth, proceeded unhesitat-
ingly to reject them. For the elections of November 9
showed that the vast majority of the German people were
opposed to the Hindenburg-Papen model of presidial
government. They had demonstrated their dishke for it in
July, and they re-emphasized their dislike in November,
when 90 per cent, of the votes were cast against the Govern-
ment.

For the Nazis, too, the elections were disastrous. From
thirteen miUions their poll fell to eleven — the figure of the
first presidential ballot — and their seats in the House
decreased from 230 to 197. On the other hand, their deadly
rivals, the Communists, profited by this defection to the
tune of a million votes, bringing up the number of their
deputies to a round himdred. But the atmosphere of tragi-
comedy which surrounded this period of German politics
was enhanced by the Gilbertian situation, which foimd
Nazis and Communists attacking one another on the hust-
ings, murdering one another in the streets, yet uniting to
support a strike which paralysed Berlin’s transport services
on the eve of the poUs.

Nor did the streak of iU-luck for the Nazis end with the
General Election. During the ensuing weeks they consist-
ently lost votes at the local elections. Sunday after Sunday
saw a steady falHng-off, and it was apparent that, if a

416

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

further Greneral Election were forced upon the country,
their seats in the Reichstag would fall below a hundred and
fifty. The fainter hearts in the party began to urge upon
the Leader the need for compromise. Let him accept the
Vice-Chancellorship, they said, otherwise they would never
attain office, and it speaks well for both Hitler’s courage
and pohtical wisdom that he withstood the counsel of these
weaker brethren and stuck to his guns.

The election had one other important result. The con-
tinued political stalemate convinced Schleicher that in
Papen he had backed the wrong horse, that this man was
not capable of dealing with the National Socialists, and that
new tactics must be adopted. The General was also very
displeased at the way in which Papen had replaced him in
Hindenburg’s confidence and favour, and he began to turn
agaiust his former comrade in conspiracy the machinery of
that very Palace Camarilla which had brought him into
power and which had compassed the fall of Muller, of
Groner, and of Briining.

Papen, however, perturbed neither by the gravity of the
situation which had resulted from the November elections
nor by the findings of the Supreme Court that at least one
part of the Presidential decree of July authorising the
Rape of Prussia was against the Constitution, was per-
fectly prepared for further elections, even though they
should plunge the country into civil war. His Cabinet
colleagues were already in considerable anffiety as to
where their volatile leader was taking them, and there was-
considerable speculation among them as to whether he
knew himself. They therefore joined with Schleicher in
urging him to ofier his resignation to the President, in order
that Hindenburg might consult the party leaders in an effort
to find a way out of the deadlock.

Papen fell ir^with this suggestion more readily than had
been expected. He himself suggested to Hindenburg that
the Cabinet should resign and be retained ad interim, and

WEIMAR AOT) NEIIDECK

417

tliat Hitler should be sent for to form a government wbicb
could command a parbamentary majority. Assured that
the Fiihrer would fail in this task, Papen saw himself re-
stored to ofl&ce with a new mandate either for further
elections or any other form of government which might
seem feasible.

The Chancellor accordingly resigned on November 17 and
Hitler arrived at the Kaiserhof with a flourish of trumpets
and a numerous staff. Two days later, cheered by enormous
crowds — ^the party always admirably organized the spon-
taneity of its demonstrations — he drove to the Palace.
There was no repetition of the humiliating episode of
August 13. Hindenburg received the leader with courtesy
and there were chairs for everybody. On this occasion.
Hitler had had the good sense to leave Eohm behind, and
the conversation, which lasted for an hour — the limi t,
which the Old Gentleman’s age would now permit — ^passed
off quietly and with dignity.

But it was not a pleasant interview for Hitler. His posi-
tion was far weaker than in the summer, at which time he
had thirteen milhons behind him and the possibihty of an
alliance with the Centre. Now, with his following decreased
by two millions and a Eeichstag in which no combination
was possible, he was on the horns of a dilemma. Hinden-
burg did not spare him. He offered him these alternatives:
either to accept the Vice-Chancellorship under Papen, as
had been offered in August, or to become Chancellor in
a government which could command a majority in the
Eeichstag.

Faced with the choice of two impossibihties, Hitler sought
to prevaricate. He returned to the Kaiserhof, and during
the next few days an exchange of letters passed between
h i m and the President which indicated aU too clearly the
unbridgable gulf which lay between them. Hitler refused
the terms of August 13 out of hand and repeated the de-
mand for the Chancellorship, indicatiug that in such a

418

WEIMAR AND NBUDECK

position he would like to enjoy the “special confidence” of
the President. To this Hindenhurg rephed: “You know that
I prefer a presidial Cabinet, one that is conducted not by a
party leader but by a man who is above party, and that is
the kin d of man in whom I should have special confidence.
You have announced that you will only place your move-
ment at the disposal of a Cabinet presided over by your-
self as the party leader. If I agree to this plan, I must
request that such a Cabinet should have a majority in the
Eeichstag. . .

The meaning of the letter was clear. Hitler was not the
sort of man in whom Hindenhurg would repose his “special
confidence”. He re-emphasized this view in a later letter:
“I cannot give a leader of a party my presidial power,
because such a Cabinet is bound to develop into a party
dictatorship and increase the state of tension prevailing
among the German people. I cannot take the responsibihty
for this before my oath and my conscience.” Fine words
these, and worthy of a Father of his People, yet within
six weeks Hindenburg had forgotten them.

By the end of November Hitler had admitted defeat and
had retired in a passion to Munich. Papen had now achieved
his aim and expected Hindenburg to re-confirm him in his
office. But he had reckoned without Schleicher. The General
had hoped, it is believed quite genuinely, that the negotia-
tions with Hitler would come to some definite issue, and in
his subtle way he had done his best to sound out the possi-
bihty of a majority in the Reichstag, but most of the parties
had suffered at one time or another from Schleicher’s in-
trigues and they were no longer willing to play with him.
His tortuous plottings had at last brought Schleicher to
the inevitable point at which he had no alternative but
to put his own head into the noose he had so frequently
tied for others. Power without responsibility had been his
ambition, and well would it have been for him if he had
remained the mystery man of the Reichswehr. Has first mis-

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

419

take Lad been to accept Cabinet ojB&ce witL its sLare of re-
sponsibiLty of government, and now be had no choice but
to accept the full burden of the Chancellorship. He had in-
trigued himself into a position out of which there was no
escape.

But Papen had first to be disposed of. Schleicher adopted
a fine similar to that which he had used in the case of Groner.
He told Hindenburg that the Papen Government no longer
enjoyed the confidence or support of the army. That which
had been untrue in the case of Groner was true of Papen.
The Keichswehr would go anywhere and do anything at the
command of the Marshal, their Commander-in-Chief, but
they would not obey Herr von Papen. Hindenburg grew
alarmed. Anything which touched the loyalty of the Reichs-
wehr afiected him deeply. Yet he loved Papen like a son and
a brother, and Oskar was as fond of the Chancellor as his
father. Hindenburg resented the grain of suspicion which
Schleicher had implanted in his mind regarding Papen. He
had not minded parting with Briining very much, but Papen
was a difierent person. Through Meissner the Old Gentleman
sounded the views of other political leaders, and in almost
every case the answer was the same: Papen must go and
Schleicher must be Chancellor. This comparative unanimity
with regard to the General was not dictated by any great
respect for his poHtical ability, but a general agreement that
the gravity of the situation demanded a man who could
unite the policy of the Cabinet with that of the Reichswehr.
One man alone could do this, Kurt von Schleicher, and it
was believed the only government against which he would
not intrigue was one in which he held both the Chancellor-
ship and the Ministry of Defence.

Hindenburg became bewildered, and not without reason.
Schleicher had in turn nominated Muller, Briining, and
Papen as the saviours of the country, and had ultimately
engineered the dismissal of aU of them. Having built
up the confidence of the Old Gentleman in each of his

420

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

proteges, lie next began to undermine it. The effect upon tbe
President was, not unnaturally, to make him suspicious of
everyone, and now particularly of ScMeicher himself. The
Old Gentleman liked Papen more than any other of his
Chancellors; he had given him his special confidence. He was
prepared to back him with the full weight of the presidential
influence and authority, and now everyone told him that
Papen must go, and that it was his duty to appoint
Schleicher. It was aU very upsetting and disagreeable
for an Old Gentleman of eighty-five. Still, if it was his
duty . . .

Even more striking was the success of Papen with Oskar
von Hindenburg, who had been Schleicher’s intimate since
they were subalterns in the Dritte Oarde, and his fellow
conspirator intermittently for over eight years. Now, when
under pressure of advice, his father seemed ready to dispense
reluctantly with Papen, Oskar defended his new friend
vigorously, and urged Hindenburg to continue his support
of the Chancellor as everything would shortly be aU right.
Oskar had been reading a book, a romantic biography of the
great Bismarck, by Beumelburg, and the highly indigestible
mental pabulum which he had absorbed seems to have
stimulated his never latent vanity. To his distorted
imagination appeared a vision of Papen as a second Iron
Chancellor, with himself in an important role, and under
this delusion he planned with Papen a scheme which
Bismarck would have considered an insult to his inteUigence.

At a Cabmet meeting early iu December 1932, from which
Schleicher was conspicuously absent, Papen airily an-
nounced his intention of dissolving, if necessary by military
force, not only the Eeichstag itself, but the Trade Unions
and aH pohtical parties and associations which were in
opposition to the Government. The Chancellor told his
colleagues that on the previous day he had discussed the
matter in detail with the executive officers of the Ministry
of Defence and that they had played a “war game” {Erieg-

WBIMAE AKD NEUDECK

421

spiel), wliiclL showed that the thing could be accomplished
“quite easily”.

The Cabinet were, in eSect, being asked to become a party
to a violation of the Constitution so wholesale that civil war
must almost certainly result therefrom, and the subsequent
creation of a new State based upon the bayonets of the
Eeichswehr and the support of a party with about 10 per
cent, of the electorate behind it. Reactionary though the
Cabinet of Barons might be, they were quite unprepared for
such drastic measures. The absence of the Minister of
Defence from a discussion of such vital military operations
made them suspicious, and the volatility of the Chancellor
had not increased their confidence in him.

They determined to play safe and, while showing great
interest in Papen’s suggestion, they asked that the officer
with whom the war-game had been played, and who would
be in charge of the operations, should give his own opinion
to the Cabinet. When that gentleman appeared, he gave,
perhaps not entirely to the surprise of the Cabinet, an
opinion so contrary to that of the Chancellor that it
amounted to a flat denial. It was no longer possible, he said,
for the army and the pohce to subdue the Nazis by force,
without the united forces of the Trade Unions, the Social
Democrats, and the Centre, and it was impHed that in
any case the army would not march for Herr von Papen.

It is impossible to say whether the Chancellor had sought
dehberately to mislead his colleagues or whether he had
honestly misunderstood the issue of the war-game played
in the Ministry of Defence, but whatever the motive, the
result was the same. The Cabinet as one man declared
that Papen must give their collective resignation to the
President, and, they insisted furthermore, lest he should
again “misunderstand the issue”, that two of their number
should accompany him when he did so. Their opinion of
Papen was clearly shown by their almost unanimous
decision to continue in office under Schleicher.

422

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

But the Old Gentleman was deeply grieved at parting
with his “Franzchen”. Unable to refuse the resignation of
the whole Cabinet, in appointing Schleicher he made no
efiort to hide the fact that the new Government would
not enjoy his confidence to the same degree as had its
predecessor. Rarely had a Chancellor been appointed with
such cold hostility and never had one retired with such
manifestations of affectionfrom the President. To Schleicher,
BQndenburg refused the decree of dissolution; to Papen he
sent his photograph inscribed “Ich hatt’ einen Kameraden” .

And now Schleicher himself experienced those torments
he had often inflicted upon others; insecurity of high office,
the wavering loyalty of the President, the machinations of
the Palace Camarilla. To him came the realization that in
the seat of supreme power he was far more isolated than in
that little room overlooking the Landwehr Canal which had
been the scene of his early intrigues and triumphs. The rats
knew how near his ship was to sinking. His agents deserted
him; the marionettes no longer responded to his touch.
Though he was in command of all the armed forces of the
State, he knew they could avail him nothing, and his men-
tality, attuned to intrigue rather than to leadership, was
barren of constructive statesmanship. To his amazement he
found that no policy was possible save that of Bruning, and
what was left of that policy he espoused, even that hated
measure of Agrarbolschevismus, the decree expropriating
the bankrupt estates of East Prussia, on which the former
Chancellor had been brought down. Never had nemesis
been more complete.

One factor alone was in his favour; the Reichstag was
unwilling to risk a further crisis, and agreed to adjourn
after the formal election of its officers, until early in the
New Year. Schleicher was granted a month’s reprieve from
certain overthrow, and with this breathing-space he had to
be content. Yet even this brief interval might have been
sufficient if he had used it profitably for negotiations. But

WEIMAE AND NEUDECE

423

Schleiclier seemed paralyzed and, beyond tentative discus-
sions with Trade Union leaders and amateur politicans,
did nothing.

Meantime the net was drawn around him. Within a week
of his appointment, the first feelers had been put out for an
alliance between the Nationalists and the Nazis. Werner
von Alvensleben, a member of the Herrenkluh which had
assisted in bringing Papen into power, and Joachim von
Kibbentrop, a wine merchant, who later was to be Hitler’s
Ambassador-at-Large, were zealous in this work, and their
efiorts were greatly aided by the support of the powerful
Bast Prussian Landbund, once more mobilized to oppose the
revived scheme of expropriation. Meetings with Papen and
Hugenberg and with Nazi leaders followed, and of these
Oskar von Efindenburg, if not his father, was cognizant and
was favourable to them. The President confined his opposi-
tion to Schleicher to a hostile coolness which increased as
the weeks went by.

This concentration of his enemies galvanized the Chan-
cellor into action, and to meet it he threatened to publish
the report of the Eeichstag enquiry into the Osthilfe loans
of 1927-28 with which the estates of East Prussia had been
kept ahve. The investigation had disclosed scandals of which
the stench reeked to heaven and of which the mud splashed
even to the steps of the Palace itself. Here indeed was a
Pandora’s box which, opened, poured forth a flood of loath-
some crawling things. There stood disclosed the example of
a landowner, bankrupt through his own ineptitude, whose
estates had been “reconstructed” three times, and, after a
fourth breakdown, had been ceded, under the Osthilfe, to a
daughter who was still a minor. There were absentee land-
lords who, with the money loaned to them by the G-overn-
ment to reconstruct their estates, had bought motor cars
and driven to the Riviera, while banks and tradesmen, who
had trustfully given them credit, remained unpaid. There
were those also, in the inexorable report of the Government

424

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

investigator, who had squandered the puhUc money on
“wine and women”, yet had received more public money,
since their names had been for centuries coupled with their
estates. This first Osthilfe had been advertised as the means
of saving the farmers. But the reconstruction of farms had
assisted primarily the fortunes of estate-owners, and only
the smallest percentage of the money reached real peasants.
The scandal affected not only the average landowner, it
struck at the titled leaders of the Landbund-, none were
spared.

By the threat of these disclosures Schleicher hoped to cow
the Junkers and bring them to heel; he thought to spin one
of his usual intrigues and did not reaUze that he was sawing
off the branch on which he was sitting. At one stroke he had
destroyed the union of two forces from which he might have
received support. Por two hundred years the army and the
Junkers had been inseparably bound together by a bond of
common interest. Schleicher had broken the bond. In enter-
ing upon this battle with the Junkers he imdeTestimated the
strength of the economic and pohtical vested interests which
he was attacking, and he was too superficial to sense the
power of tradition which hundreds of years had centred in
one caste.

Representatives of thirteen thousand Junker fa mili es
ralhed to the defence of their prerogatives. They surrounded
the President and clamoured for Schleicher’s dismissal. The
Palace teemed like an ant-heap which has been stirred with
a stick. The house of the Reichslandbund became the
centre of intrigue against the Chancellor.

With extraordinary obstinacy Schleicher refused to be-
lieve in the progress of the movement against him, even
though he was informed that the crucial meeting between
Papen and Hitler was shortly to take place. At the parties
which he attended during the Christmas and New Year festi-
vities, he declared himself to be quite secure. He had, he
said, the President’s confidence and support, and Herr von

WEIMAR AMD NEUDECK

425

Papen had given him hia promise not to intrigue against the
Government; he had even expressed his willingness to ac-
cept a diplomatic post abroad. So Schleicher pursued his
paralytic pohcy.

In the meantime Papen was essaying to play the deus
ex machina. The motives which actuated him during these
days will for ever remain obscure. Certainly his colossal
vanity, which made his continued disappearance from the
public eye intolerable to him, played an important part, for
the itch of ambition had been greatly excited during his
six months as Chancellor. Certainly, too, there was the lust
to revenge himself on Schleicher. Yet it is almost inconceiv-
able that these two factors could so far warp Papen’s judg-
ment that he could forget all that he knew of Hitler and his
proclaimed policies. In August he had been shocked and dis-
quieted by the Fuhrer’& demand for three clear days on the
streets for the S.A., and even his short memory could not
have let shp the ghastly prophecy that “heads shall roll.”
One hesitates to beheve that, at this moment, when Papen
held his hands for Hitler to vault into the saddle, he
knowingly gave his consent to a policy of murder and
torture.

In aU fairness to Papen it must be beheved that he was
not yet undeceived as to his ability to make a captive of
Hitler, to harness the Nazis to his own chariot, and to
unite them in a great alliance with the Junkers and heavy
industry. Nor was this dream entirely impossible of
realization. The National Sociahst Party after the Novem-
ber election was bankrupt in every sense of the word.
There was not even enough money to pay the salaries of
Hitler’s body-guard, of which Rohm, single-handed,
quelled a mutiny and foiled an attempt upon the FiiJirer’s
life. Punds the party must have, and if Papen could supply
them he had a right to make his own terms. Thus he who,
when he had been Chancellor, had threatened the great
industrialists for subsidizing the Nazis, now negotiated

426

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

■witli them to meet the party’s overwhelming deficit. A
greater politician might have succeeded; as it was, Papen,
far from harnessing the Nazis, was riveting upon his own
wrists the fetters which should bind him captive to their
chariot wheels.

The historic interview between Papen and Hitler took
place at Cologne on January 8, 1933, at the house of the
great banker Baron von Schroeder, and here the basis of a
working agreement was laid. Nothing was put in writing,
but it was agreed that, in return for the Chancellorship and
the funding of the enormous debts of the Nazi Party,
Hitler would give his word that he would not infringe the
Constitution in any respect. For Papen this undertaking
was of the greatest importance, for only by this fiction
could he reconcile the President to the idea of Hitler as
Chancellor.

His oath to the Constitution, his conscience, and his
duty were Hindenburg’s lodestar. In August and in
November he had been unable to reconcile them with the
appointment of Hitler; now, two months later, on the mere
word of Hitler, the trustworthiness of which Hindenburg
had had every reason to doubt, he was beguiled by Papen
into acquiescence. Anxious to have his “Pranzchen” with
him again, to be rid of the now abhorrent Schleicher,
and to be quit of the importunings of his fellow landed
proprietors of East Prussia, Hindenburg turned with re-
lief to Papen’s proposals as a means whereby peace and
security at home might be achieved. But again his “horse
sense”, his Bauernschlauheit, did not entirely desert him.
He did not give his full consent at once, but only suffi-
cient of his blessing to encourage Papen to proceed a Little
further.

The news of the Cologne meeting and its upshot struck
Schleicher like a thunderbolt. To the end he had persisted
in disbelieving the information given him. He had counted
so much on the impossibility of an alliance between the

WEIMAE AKD NEUDECK

427

Nationalists and the Nazis, and he could not credit the
fact that, after the scenes which had attended the inter-
views of August and November, Papen and Hitler could
come to terms. But the incredible had happened, and
Schleicher fulfilled the prophecy which Briining had made
to him as the dawn crept through the windows of that
very library in which he now sat in the Chancellor’s chair.
Behind his fagade of assurance, Schleicher was in a panic.
Instead of planning calmly how to outwit his enemies, he
indulged in the most fantastic negotiations which could
bring him no possible strength either inside or outside the
Reichstag. Bruning had been right in his discernment; the
nerves of the machine-gun officer were better than those of
the stall captain.

The party leaders, none of whom desired a further
political crisis, were ready to agree to a further postpone-
ment of the Reichstag until late in January. Schleicher
refused their offer, saying that he had the assurance of the
President that full power should be his in the event of an
adverse vote. In this Schleicher had allowed himself to
be misled by the guileful promise of Oskar, that he was
sure the President would grant him full power if he asked
for it. The truth was that the negotiations between Papen
and Hitler had progressed slowly but steadily, and it was
necessary to give the Chancellor a temporary assurance
till it was time to administer the coup de grace. Schleicher’s
experience as a conspirator and his knowledge of the
Hindenburgs, pkre etfils, should have warned him that their
promises to Chancellors were notoriously brittle. That he
beheved Oskar, notwithstanding their recent quarrel, is
evidence in itself of his bewildered state of mind. How
often had he himself conveyed a similar assurance to
Chancellors about to fall!

For what reason did Schleicher thus refuse the ofier of
support from the party leaders? It was his last avenue of
escape from certain disaster and he deliberately refused to

428

WEIMAH AND NBUDECK

make use of it. Was he ill? Had all sense of balance left him?
Or was it that his work for eighteen years in mihtary and
pohtical intelligence made him profoundly distrustful of
everybody, and particularly of those whom he had wronged?
The answer is surely in the last reason. Schleicher could
not conceive of doing such a thing himself and, with the
conscience of Cain, he could not imagine that anyone whom
he had wronged could give him sincere advice. Briining
had taken the lead in persuading the other party leaders
to give the Chancellor a respite, but such was Schleicher’s
sense of guilt that he would rather resign than owe a
victory in the Reichstag to Briining’s support.

Having rejected the ofier of a further breathing-space
he embarked on a series of negotiations, incongruous and
contradictory. He offered Gregor Strasser the Vice-Chan-
cellorship in a vain endeavour to spht the Nazi Party,
with the result that Hitler “disciphned” his erring Heu-
tenant and stripped him of his party offices, though he
had been amongst the oldest members of the movement.
In desperation Schleicher sent for Leipart, the Trade
Union leader, and proposed to bim a general strike
supported by the army. But though this plan found favour
among the younger officers of the Reichswehr, who dreamed
of re-estabhshing the old Prussian Warrior State on the
foundation of the labouring class, the Trades Unions would
have none of it.

Reports of the progress of his enemies now beat in upon
the distracted Chancellor. Hitler was again at the Kaiserhof,
and this time with victory assured. Papen went regularly
to the Palace, and the attacks on the Chancellor in the
Nationalist and Nazi press became daily more venomous.
As a last resort Schleicher sent Hammerstein, the G.O.C.
of the Reichswehr, to Hindenburg to impress upon bim the
dangers of a regime such as that proposed by Papen. The
Marshal refused to discuss the pohtieal situation and coldly
criticized the conduct of the recent army manoeuvres.

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

429

At last Sclileiclier realized his fate, the fate that he had
meted out to so many before him. On January 28 he went
to the President to ask for a dissolution of the Eeichstag if
he met with a vote of no confidence. In the presidential
study, through which in the past seven years a procession
of Schleicher’s victims had passed, the General faced his
Commander-in-Chief and sometime friend. With aU the
eloquence at his command he besought Hindenburg not to
give Hitler the power he had so long withheld. He did not
plead for himself; indeed Schleicher showed greatness in his
defeat, he only asked that this poHcy, which could but
end in disaster, should not be followed.

It was useless; with that curt cruelty which Grbner and
Bruning had known so well, the Marshal cut him short.
“Thank you. General, for what you have done for the
country, and now let us see ‘wie der Ease weiter Iduft’.”

The long career was ended, and in the depths of his
h umili ation Schleicher turned to the greatest of his victims.
In his cloistered retreat, where he lay on a sick-bed, Bruning
received the penitent. “Your dismissal was a hard one,”
said Schleicher, “but, befieve me, it was pleasant compared
to mine.”

With that same lack of emotion which usually charac-
terized his parting from a Chancellor, Hindenburg firmly
placed the Schleicher episode behind him and turned
resolutely to the business in hand, the negotiations with
Hitler. The Marshal was frankly delighted to have Papen
back at his side, partly because of his congenial company
and partly because he relieved Hindenburg of the trials
and, above aU, of the responsibfiities of negotiation. For in
this situation, as in aU. previous critical moments of his fife,
Hindenburg ran true to form. He shirked the ultimate
responsibility. He knew that the decisions which must be
taken within the next forty-eight hours were of the most
vital importance to Germany. Instinctively he realized that
an end to the Weimar System had come and that the country

O m

430

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

of wliich. he was the head was on the threshold of tremendous
happenings, the final issue of which could not be seen. It
might be that Papen’s plans would succeed; it might be
that they would meet with ghastly failure. In any case
Hindenburg’s instinct was to protect himself against the
future. He named Papen his deputy, with the task of “clear-
ing up the political situation within the framework of the
Constitution and in agreement with the Keichstag”.

Papen, whatever else he lacked, was fuUy ahve to the
eccentricities and weaknesses of the President, and par-
ticularly those which had placed him in his present position
of arbiter. The inherent dislike of Hiudenburg for shoulder-
ing the final responsibility was a trump card in Papen’s
hand which he kept back until he could use it to its fullest
advantage. He was not even entirely decided in his own
mind whether he would make Hitler Chancellor or not, and
in his first efiort at Cabinet-making, which occurred on the
afternoon of Schleicher’s dismissal, he gave himself the
leadership of the Government and the key positions to
members of the former Cabinet, leaAung only minor Minis-
tries to his aUies. Hitler, however, never abandoned his
fundamental demands: the Chancellorship for hhnself, the
control of the Prussian police, the passage of an Enabling
Act, and, if necessary, new elections. He refused to consider
anything else and reminded Papen of their pact at Cologne.

With considerable reluctance the President, late on the
night of Saturday, January 28th, authorized Hitler to form
a Cabinet and the following morning was spent in bickering
and argument. The air seemed heavy with the presage of
great events; rumour followed rumour. The city was restless,
and armed pohce patrolled the streets. Now the Palace
woidd make a concession, now the Kaiserhof, till shortly
before noon Papen made his final offer. Hitler should have
the Chancellorship and the Reich and Prussian Ministries
of Interior for his party; Papen himself would be Vice-
Chancellor and ReichsJcommissar for Prussia; and Hugen-

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

431

berg, as representative of tbe Right and heavy industry,
the Minister of Agriculture and Economic Affairs in the
Reich and in Prussia; the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and
Finance were to remain in the hands of their present holders,
ISTeurath and Schwerin von Krosigk, and General Baron
von Blomberg was to be the new Minister of Defence.

Though this proposal went far to meet the demands of
the Nazis, it omitted all mention of an Enabling Bill and of
the right to dissolve the Reichstag, and while it gave the
party control of the whole poHce force of Prussia, it necessi-
tated their agreement with Hugenberg’s economic theories
of autarchy. After consideration the offer was refused. Once
more Papen began to play with the idea of assuming the
Chancellorship, and by the evening had almost succeeded in
forming a Cabinet, when again dramatic events changed the
course of history. It became known that Schleicher, who
still remained in ofi&ce as acting Chancellor, had summoned
by telegram all the Trade Union leaders throughout the
country to an i mm ediate conference in the Ministry of
Defence.

While the Palace debated as to whether this was a pre-
lude to a general strike, Werner von Alvensleben came hot-
foot from a dinner-party with even more disturbing tidings.
There had been present General von Bredow, Schleicher’s
closest friend and colleague, beside himself with grief and
anger at the curt dismissal of his chief. Without restraint
he had cursed the House of Hindenbuxg for its perfidy and
cried, in the fury of his rage, that Schleicher should — or
would — summon the Potsdam garrison and restrain by
force the Old Gentleman (but this was not what Bredow
actually called him) from committing the monstrous crime
of giving the supreme power to PQtler; he added that
Papen, Oskar, and the Fuhrer himself should be confined
in the fortress of Lotzen.

Though it is virtually impossible that this plan could have
been anything but the figment of Bredow’s rage-drunk mind,

432

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

for the Potsdam garrison would never have changed their
loyalty from Hindenburg to Schleicher, the news which
young Alvensleben brought to the Palace, and which soon
spread to the Kaiserhof, threw both camps, already in a
state of nervous tension, into complete panic. The need for
an immediate agreement was obvious, and both sides pre-
pared to make concessions. Hitler accepted the offer of the
morning on condition that Goring should become a Minister
without PortfoHo in the Beich Cabinet, giving the party
three votes instead of two. But the greatest obstacle was
the Enabling BiU.

It was now that Papen used his trump card. He knew
well how weary Hindenburg had become of government by
decree, which laid upon him the responsibdity of aU Not-
verorAnungen. The Enabhng BiH, passed by a two-thirds
majority of the Reichstag, would reheve him of this burden.
From Hitler was extracted the verbal undertaking that he
would not make use of the extraordinary powers accorded
him in any point to which the President objected, and,
further, to liberate the President from all responsibihty, it
was suggested that Papen should exercise this power of veto
in his name. But in order to secme a parliamentary majority
for such legislation fresh elections were necessary — and the
Nazis were determined that, with the machinery of govern-
ment in their hands, the resrdt should be satisfactory — and
thus it came about that the decree of dissolution which had
been denied to Schleicher was granted to Hitler.

Under the blandishments of Papen, Hindenburg was
turned once more along a fresh path of duty. The new Gov-
ernment, it was urged upon him, would wipe out for ever
the stain of November 1918. He was reminded of his own
words, written under the shadow of defeat: “The old Ger-
man spirit will descend upon us again, though it may be
that we shall first have to go through the purif ying fibres of
passion and suffering”. How nobly he had written, they told
him, and how truly. The days of the refining fire were over

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

433

and the new dawn of an awakened Germany was about to
break. He who in his person united whole generations, had
outhved the wandering in the wilderness to bring his people
into the promised land. Germany, once arraigned as the
criminal of Europe, would again be a power in the councils
of the world, and the traditions of the German army would
take on a fresh lustre and a new brightness.

All these things were told to Hindenburg and he was fain
to believe them. And did not Papen perhaps whisper some-
thing else into the Old Gentleman’s ear? The Spectre of Spa
had grown appreciably dimmer in these later years and it
seemed at times as if it had been altogether exorcized. But
now it grew again in strange new guise. With the powers of
the Eight united and in the saddle, with Hitler, though
Chancellor, yet securely the prisoner of the Nationalists, it
might at last be possible to do that which in his heart of
hearts Hindenburg had long believed it his duty to do; to
restore the monarchy and recall his “Most Gracious Kaiser,
King and Lord” to the throne. He him self had written that
“from the tempestuous seas of our national Ufe will once
more emerge that rock — ^the Imperial German House”;
now perhaps he might himself make good his words.

The blandishments of Papen, the insistent importunings
of Oskar, the shrewd counsel of Meissner, had their effect.
Convinced, as always, that the path of duty stretched straight
before him, Hindenburg signified his consent. The ardour of
the Nazis would be curbed by giving them the responsibfiity
of government; Papen would exercise the presidential veto
to prevent any violation of the Constitution; responsibility
of government was once and for all removed from his
shoulders and the injustices of November 1918 would for
ever be wiped out. Without a tremor, without a thought for
the nineteen milli on voters of the Left who had re-elected
him, the Jews, the Catholics, and the Socialists whom the
National Sociahst Party had declared to be its enemies,
Hindenburg gave his assent, and on the morning of January

434

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

30, 1933, the Third Eeich came into being. “How gloriously”,
writes Goring in a transport of triumph, “had the aged
Keld-Marshal been used as an instrument in the hand of
God”.

Berlin was in a ferment. The Brown Legions were aggres-
sively triumphant, the Stahlhelm looked with satisfaction
to the inclusion of their leader in the Cabinet, the Commun-
ists breathed defiance, albeit disconcernedly, and the hopes
of the Trade Unions and of Social Democracy turned with
pathetic trust towards the Palace, where hved the man their
votes had re-elected to power.

The day passed in feverish excitement. The Cabinet was
sworn early in the morning in circumstances of great con-
fusion. Seldte, the Stahlhelm chief, could not be found, and
ultimately arrived to find a wild search in progress for
someone to take his place as Minis ter of Labour. Two other
Ministers came to the Palace under the impression that
they were joining Papen’s Government. Everything was in
a turmoil.

But by noon Germany began to know who was master
m the new Government and by the evening the triumph of
the National Sociahsts was complete. A gigantic torchlight
procession passed endlessly along the Wilhelmstrasse, and
from the open window of the Chancellery Hitler leaned far
out to receive the acclamations of his followers. Further
down the street, behind windows closed to protect him from
the damp night air, Hindenburg too watched the cheering
throng. Thousands of cheering Germans marched beneath
him, but they were acclaiming another.

There is a story — se non ^ vero, e ben trovato — of Hinden-
buig at this moment. The events of the day had undoubtedly
excited him; he had received many compliments, the bur-
den of which had been that for a second time he had saved
Germany. The Hindenburg Legend had suddenly blazed
up again in a white-heat of enthusiasm, and his old mind
went back to past glories as he watched the marching

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

435

thousands. The Brown Shirts passed at a shambling pace,
to be followed by the field-grey ranks of the Stahlhelm,
moving with a precision born of discipline. The old Marshal
watched them from his window as in a dream, and those
behind him saw him beckon over his shoulder. “Luden-
dorff,” the old voice said, with a return to its harsh bark-
ing, “how well your men are marching, and what a lot of
prisoners they’ve taken!”

When the great torchhght procession had passed cheer-
ing through the Brandenburger Tor into the night, leaving
behind it streets filled with maf6.cking partizans, there was
no prouder man in Germany than Franz von Papen. How
splendidly it had all come out in the end and how well his
plans had carried. Schleicher had paid the penalty for
his treachery at last, and Hitler at last, too, was a hostage
in the camp of the Nationahsts. The Osthilfe scandals had
been suppressed, and all at the cost of three portfolios.
WHiy, with himself governing Prussia, with Hugenberg and
the Nationalists and the great industriaUsts, with Seldte
and the Stahlhelm, all in the Government, the position was
as safe as could be. “We can always outvote them in
Cabinet”, he gaily assured one who later questioned the
security of his position.

Alas for his vanity, his complacency, and his dreams.
In a few weeks, when the new elections had given the Nazis
a vote of seventeen millions, Papen found himself deprived
of the Government of Prussia; Goebbels, Hess, and Eohm
entered the Cabinet; Hugenberg was obstructed at every
turn and eventually dismissed with ignominy; Seldte
cringed to the crack of the Nazi whip and the Stahlhelm
mounted the swastika. Hitler, who at first had been con-
tent to be received by the President in the presence of the
Vice-Chancellor, intimated his intention of going alone to
the Palace. Papen’s better feehngs and good-nature were
revolted by the bestiahties of the Brown Terror, which for
months after the elections cast a pall of fear over Germany

436

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

aud sent a sinidder of horror throughout the civilized world.
Too late did he awake to a realization of the true state of
things which he had created, to find himself playing the
role of hostage for which he had cast Hitler.

But on the first night of triumph, aU this was distant and
unthought of; the glow of achievement warmed Papen’s
soul and the fervour of congratulation was lik e wine to
him. His new colleagues pressed his hand in gratitude that
might well be heart-felt; his old friends praised his tact and
wisdom. This was his hour, and the cheers were music to
his ears.

Above the cheering multitudes and the songs of triumph
Hindenburg slept, and in his sleep he dreamed that he was
dead. In awe he came before the gates and faced the Great
Examiner:

“Your name?”

“Paul von Beneckendorf und von Hindenburg, General
Field-Marshal and President of the German Reich.”

“What have you done in life?”

“I think. Sir, that I have done my duty.”

“But have you kept your Oath?”

And in the efiort to find an answer to this question
Hindenburg, with relief, awoke.

They were stfil cheering. . . .

10

For every man and woman who paraded through the
streets of Berlin in triumph on the last nights of January
1933, there were those who sat at home in fear and anxiety.
The supporters of what had now become the Opposition, the
Socialists, the Trade Unionists, the Catholics, the Jews, and
many an honest patriotic German without specific party
affiliations, looked on in apprehension at this new dawn
which was breaking over Germany. They had read the
warnings of the Nazi leaders as to what would happen

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

437

when they, the party, came to power, the fierce threats of
Hitler, the bloodthirsty promises of Goring, the lurid articles
which had flowed from Goebbels’s facile pen; and they
waited, their eyes turned as a last hope towards the Palace.

Moving among one’s friends in Germany at this time
was to receive a startling revelation of the touching faith
which so many still reposed in Hindenburg. The Legend —
so soon to be recognized as a myth — ^was never stronger than
at this moment of ordeal, when those who had re-elected
him not a year before turned to him for justice and protec-
tion with a pathetic confidence. Everywhere the same phrase
was heard, “It’s all right so long as the Old Gentleman’s
there”. No father of his people had so genuinely enjoyed
the trust of his electors as did Hindenburg at this moment.

And it is certain that the Old Gentleman had no concep-
tion of how terribly he had betrayed his trusteeship. He had
only accepted Hitler on the condition that the Constitution
should be respected and law and order maintained. He had
undoubtedly done his duty as it had been indicated to him.
Besides, Hitler did not appear to be as obnoxious as he had
at first believed. The Fiihrer had acquired a certain tact and
subtlety since August and November of the previous year.
He had behaved in Hindenburg’s presence with a becoming
modesty and had made no difficulties about recogniziug
Papen as the President’s deputy. Moreover, he had adhered
closely to the letter of his bond. On the day after his appoint-
ment as Chancellor he had made at least a pretence of
negotiations with the Centre for a working majority in the
existing Eeichstag, and it was only after these conversations
had broken down — as indeed they were bound to do — that
he had made use of the decree of dissolution. In declaring
for the new election Hitler had made a speech calculated
both to please the President and proclaim a deathless
war upon the System. His leitmotiv had been “Because of
November 1918”, and it had been a masterpiece: “Fourteen
years have passed since the day, when, blinded by promises

438

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

from within and without, the German people lost honour and
freedom. Fourteen years of Marxism have ruined the country;
one year of Bolshevism would destroy it. In this hour of
anxiety the venerable leader of the World War has called
upon the men of the National Parties and associations once
more, as formerly at the front, to fight for the salvation of
the Eeich.”

That was the kind of language Hindenburg bked to hear.
This fellow Hitler, if kept properly in check, might prove a
very useful asset to Germany.

There were already growing signs that Hitler and his
lieutenants had no intention of being kept in check. WMe
the Chancellor kept within the letter of his agreement,
Goring was quietly making himself secure in Prussia. The
election campaign was proving a fierce and bitter one. The
Communists were fighting for their lives. The Chancellor
had given his word that law and order must be maintained,
and as a result picked men of the Storm Troops were en-
rolled as auxiliary police and armed with rifles and side
arms. This did not, however, prevent fifty-one opponents of
the Government, by no means aU of them Communists,
from being killed during the campaign, and a far larger
number, including Stegerwald, Bruning’s former chief and
Minister, and other Opposition leaders, from being badly
beaten and man-handled. Party meetings of the Social
Democrats and Centre were broken up by S.A. men while
the auxiliaries looked on and the regular police were nowhere
to be seen, and at Kaiserlautern Bruning’s speech to his
followers was punctuated by bursts of rifle fire from the
street fighting outside.

And yet as the campaign proceeded it became evident
that, with all the machinery for propaganda and terroriza-
tion in their hands, and despite their attempts by posters
and in speeches to identify the person of the President with
their cause, the Hitler Government was not, in aU proba-
bility, going to achieve the necessary majority to control

WEIMAR AKD NEUDECK

439

the Eeichstag. The election, it seemed, would result in the
usual stalemate. The incalculable factor of the floating vote
could not be sufihciently reckoned on to go the right way,
and it became increasingly obvious that nothing short of a
bombshell would stampede them in the required direction.

As if in obedience to the needs of the party, the bomb-
shell duly burst. On February 24 a police raid on the head-
quarters of the Communist Party at the Karl Liebknecht-
haus “disclosed” plans for an armed uprising accompanied
by incendiarism and the poisoning of the water supply of
Berlin. Three days later the Eeichstag building sympatheti-
cally caught fixe.

There are few now, whether inside or outside Germany,
who harbour illusions regarding the responsibility for this
action. The Leipzig Trial proved nothing save the guilt of
the half-witted van der Lubbe — ^which no one had ever
doubted since he was caught red-handed — and the moral
superiority of Dimitrofi over Goring. Few pohtical trials
have been a greater disappointment to the prosecution. Yet
by executing the unfortunate Dutchman the Nazis satis-
factorily disposed of the only man who, on their own find-
ings, could ever have been expected to supply evidence as
to the origin of the fire. But the onus of responsibility is of
httle comparative importance with the result. The Eeich-
stag Fire provided the Nazis, whether by intent or by good
fortune, with the very factor for victory which had been
lacking. Not only could they suppress the Communist Party
as a whole and thereby make certain of a majority in the
new Parliament, but they used this sinister phenomenon to
woo, albeit somewhat fiercely, the floating vote.

They did both with great effect. With astounding celerity
for a government so completely taken by surprise, the
necessary steps were taken fox public security, and Hinden-
burg, who had congratulated himself that with this new
Government he would at last be released from the responsi-
biUty of signing decrees, found that his signature must be

440

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

put to one wMcli suspended the most important funda-
mental rights of the Constitution: those same rights which
he had twice sworn to defend.

In their masterly handhng of the emergency the N azi mem-
bers of the Cabinet gave their Nationahst colleagues a taste
of what they must expect in future. The objections which
the Conservative element raised were swept aside and it was
intimated to the objectors that they would hold their tongues
if they knew what was good for them. So great was the ten-
sion during the last week before the election that it was seri-
ously feared that the Chancellor, who had ordered a concen-
tration of the S.A. in Berlin, might seize the person of the
President; in a panic Papen mobilized the Stahlhelm and
even considered carrying off Hindenburg for greater security
to the mihtary depot at Doberitz. The differences were com-
posed, however, and in a fine show of comradeship the
Nationalists and the Nazis made their final appeals to the
electorate on the eve of the poU.

The elections of March 5 showed that the Nazis had added
nearly six million votes to their total in November. They
achieved a poll of over seventeen and a quarter millions
with 288 seats; their alhes the Nationalists had retained
the 52 seats they had held in the previous Eeichstag, and
together the Government Parties controlled 340 seats in a
house of 647, or just over 61 per cent. With all the odds in
their favour, therefore, and after employing every electoral
artifice, they had only succeeded in convincing a bare
majority of the electorate. With the exception of the Com-
munists, who had laboured under considerable difficulties
and had lost 20 seats, the parties of the Opposition had stood
the test remarkably well. The Social Democrats had only
lost one seat and the Centre had gained three. But the float-
ing vote had gone overwhelmingly to the Nazis and, still
within the letter of his undertaking. Hitler had gained his
parliamentary majority.

Immediately the change was felt. Simultaneously with the

WBIMAE AND NEUDECK

441

declaration of the poll, coups de main had taken place in
Bavaria, Hamburg, and elsewhere, as a result of which the
existing Governments were evicted and Nazi commissioners
installed. At the same time the pohce forces of Saxony,
Baden, and Wiirttemberg were placed under the control of
the Reich Ministry of Interior, and, as a final declaration of
independence. Hitler insisted upon dispensing with Papen’s
presence at his interviews with Hindenhurg.

Now, too, the S.A. were given their freedom on the streets
and the Brown Terror was released from whatever restraint
stdl remained. Personal grudges were paid ofi in blood and
the natural brutahty of exuberant youth found a violent out-
let in assaulting men and women whose only crime had been
that they beheved in a different pohtical creed. Social-
ists, Jews, Communists, and Pacifists, in fact anyone who
could be embraced by the elastic opprobrium of “Marxist”,
were herded into lorries and transported to those concentra-
tion camps where, as Frick, now Reich Minister of Interior,
put it, “Marxists are trained to become useful members of
society once more”.

Nor was this persecution confined to the rank and file of
the Opposition. Men who had held with dignity high offices
of State were subjected to shameful indignities or forced to
hide fromsearching partiesof brown-shirtedhoohgans. Lobe,
who had been President of the Reichstag for more than
twelve years, and who had once praised Hindenhurg for his
loyalty to the Constitution, was arrested and placed in a
concentration camp; Leinert too, the President of the Prus-
sian Diet, who in the revolutionary days of 1918, in Han-
over, had ordered that Frau von Hindenhurg should be
treated with proper respect; while the Marshal’s erstwhile
“Brother Jonathan”, Heinrich Briining, was hunted from
house to house, not daring to sleep two nights beneath the
same roof.

At last the men and women who had placed their trust in
Hindenhurg as a protector of their civil hberties realized

44:2

WEIMAR AND NEUDBCK

the futility of their faith. They had seen his head on election
posters silhouetted in profile with those of Papen and Hitler,
but they had not known how wholly he had deserted them.
The love and confidence which they had given him was now
replaced by hatred and bitterness, and in many a prison
camp his name was execrated and reviled.

The mood, as ever in Berlin, found its outlet in stories.

“Have you heard,” a man would ask his friend, glancing
over his shoulder to make sure he was not overheard, for
such stories were a penal ofience, “Hindenburg was at the
Oranienburg Concentration Camp yesterday?”

“Oh? Why?”

“He wanted to visit some of his electors.”

“That’s nothing”, his friend would answer. “They say the
Old Man signs anything now. The other day Meissner left
his sandwich bag on the table and when he came back the
President had signed it.”

In efiect, Hindenburg knew very Httle of what was going
on. He had been assured that the provisions of the decree
which he had signed on February 28 would be used only in
accordance with the demands of national safety, and he had
swallowed, hook, fine, and sinker, the story of a Communist
plot. That the powers which he had thus conferred upon the
Government were being shamefully abused he was com-
pletely ignorant, and it was the role of his intimate advisers
to keep him in this bHssful state.

Yet that hypersensitive conscience which had so often
in earher days prohibited his taking certain action, could
not have passed over in complete silence his decrees
abohshing the colours of the Weimar Kepubhc, both as
the national flag and from the military standard of the
Eeich, nor his proclamation that in so doing he was “glad
to give visible expression to the increased affinity of the
fighting forces with resurgent national forces of the German
people”. As Commander-in-Chief of an army whose loyalty
to him never wavered until his death, he could, had he

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

443

been so minded, have beld tbe military forces of tbe Eeich.
aloof from the Revolution and thereby preserved the non-
political nature of the army.

Those who surrounded him knew well how to touch the
Old Gentleman’s sensibilities. Hitler was anxious to estab-
lish the link between the Revolution and the military
glories of ancient Prussia, and what better means could
there be than a dedicatory service, before the opening of
the new Reichstag, in the Garrison Church of Potsdam
above the tomb of Frederick the Great?

It was an affair of glittering splendour, that scene on
March 21. The Reichswehr stood in long hnes of silent
imm obility and for the last time the Brown Army and the
Stahlhelm paraded as allies. AU the great military figures
were there, and some of lesser greatness. Mackensen and
the Crown Prince, both in the magnificent uniform of the
Death’s Head Hussars; Seeckt, on the eve of a long exile
from Germany; the heads of the army and navy. Hammer-
stein and Eaeder, and many other figures emerging from
retirement, in ancient uniforms that started at the seams,
and PicJcelkauben that perched precariously on heads that
had changed their contours.

The Cabinet was in civilian dress, save for Blomberg in
field-grey, and Goring, who wore some wonderful con-
fection of his own. Lastly, there came the President, Field-
Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, gigantic, and seemingly
unmoved.

Yet he was moved. Deep memories stirred within him;
the day in 1866 when he had first stood at the tomb of
Prussia’s greatest king, a young lieutenant of the Guards
but recently returned in victory; that second pilgrimage of
Wilhe lm I after the triumphs over France — ^then, too, he
had been there, a lusty young subaltern; and now, after
more than half a century, he was again in this same shrine,
with Germany perhaps on the threshold of future glories.
These pictures must have recalled themselves as the service

444 WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

proceeded, and those sitting close to Hindenburg saw tears
on bis cheeks.

The procedure had been designed to associate the
Marshal firmly and for ever with the new order, and both
his speech and that of the Chancellor had been prepared
with this in mind. By honouring him as Germany’s veteran
leader of the World War, it was hoped to obliterate his
unfortunate connection for the past eight years with the
Weimar System. Hindenburg, who had been the hero of
German arms, must be established as the symbol of the
National Revolution.

The speech of the President was of particular interest
since it laid upon him alone the responsibility for the
formation of the new “Government of National AUiance”,
and closed with a stern injunction to the Reichstag that
they were expected “to stand behind the Government and
do everything possible to support it in its difiS.cult work”.

Hitler’s oration, on the other hand, was one in glorifica-
tion of the Marshal, and a justification of the principles
which he cherished. The event was one which appealed to
the romantic mysticism of the Chancellor’s southern
temperament, and his voice shook as he spoke:

Neither the Emperor, nor the Government, nor the people willed the
War. But the decline of the nation, the general collapse, compelled a
weak generation, against itsown better judgment and against itsmost
sacred convictions, to accept the assertion of our war-guilt. . . . By
a unique upheaval, national honour has been restored in a few weeks,
and, thanks to your understanding. Hen General-Feldmarschall, the
marriage has been consummated between the symbols of the old great-
ness and the new strength. We pay you homage. A protective
Providence places you above the new forces of our nation.

Deeply moved by his owu eloquence. Hitler crossed the
dais and, with an obeisance of himiihty, grasped the old
Marshal’s hand. Magnesium flared; cameras clicked; and
there was perpetuated a scene which Joseph Goebbels,
the Reinhardt of the Revolution, was to exploit so fuUy

WBIMAE AND NEUDECK

445

in the weeks to come. The Field-Marshal and the Corporal,
the Old Germany and the New, united by a hand-clasp of
comradeship — ^it was to be a theme and an event which no
German was to be allowed to forget and which was to be
implanted in the mind of every German child.

When the Reichstag adjourned to its new quarters in
the Kroll Opera House, it had but one item of business,
to commit hara-kiri by passing the Enabling Bill. Hitler
was anxious to make this event a great mass-suicide of
the pohtical parties, and to that end had been at some pains
to negotiate with the party leaders in order that the Bill
might be passed by as large a majority as possible. A
Government majority was, of course, assured, and it was
taken for granted that those Communist Deputies who had
so far escaped arrest would not attend the sitting. But the
Social Democrats would vote against the Bill and it was
therefore to the Centre that Hitler addressed himself.

In view of the fact that the Bill would be passed anyway,
even in the face of a united opposition, the Centre Party
leaders devoted themselves to an attempt to save what
they could of the constitutional privileges. The Bill trans-
ferred the power of legislation from the Reichstag to the
Government and empowered them even to change the
Constitution if they thought fit. Though it was specifically
stated that the rights of the President of the Repubhc
should remain untouched, this provision was virtually
nullified by vesting in the Chancellor the President’s
principal prerogative, that of rectifying legislation, in
order, it was explained, “to relieve the President of un-
necessary work”.

It was upon this last item of the Bill that the leaders of
the Centre took their stand. Would not the Chancellor
respect the President’s prerogative of veto? Hitler replied
that he had given his promise, that he would promulgate
extreme legislation only after consultation with the
President, and he could assure them that he would never

2g

446

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

disregard the President’s wishes. Pruning and Kaas, with
a previous knowledge of this kind of negotiation, demanded
a written confirmation of this promise before the Centre
Party voted for the Bill, and to this the Chancellor agreed.
A letter should reach Kaas before the final vote.

On the morning of the fatal session in the KjoU Opera
House on March 23, no letter had arrived and Kaas again
applied to Hitler. There was no need for anxiety, the
Chancellor replied; he had already signed the letter, but
it also required the counter-signature of Dr. Frick, the
Minister for the Interior; it would arrive in time. The
opening of session came; stiU no letter. Kaas approached
Frick. The Minister was all apologies; he was so overtaxed
with work that he had had no time to sign all the papers
which had been brought to him. But the letter was in his
portfolio; he would give it his earliest attention. Pruning
advised that unless the letter had arrived before the vote
was taken, the Centre should oppose the BiU, but the final
decision lay with Kaas as head of the party.

Hitler introduced the Bill to the Reichstag in a speech
remarkable for its moderation and lack of colour. A more
fiery oration had been expected and had, indeed, been
prepared, but at the last moment the counsel of the
Foreign Office had been heeded and the original text
toned down. As the Chancellor sat down, Goring, from the
presidential chair, called peremptorily upon the leader of
the Social Democrats. There was a moment’s deathly
silence, and from outside could be heard the ghastly chant
of the Storm Troopers who packed the streets; “Give us
the Bill or else fire and murder.” It was the voice of the
New Germany. With a tremendous efiort Otto Weis rose
from his place and, as if on leaden feet, moimted to the
rostrum. Then with squared shoulders he faced the House
and, in a voice which did not shake, gave the decision
of his party. It was an uncompromising and courageous
rejection. The great Socialist Party of Germany, which

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

447

had defied Bismarck and Wilhelm II, would not betray its
traditions and its honour. The Government might take
their fives, it could not destroy their soul.

Amid the subdued cheers of his followers and the infuri-
ated yells of the Nazis, Weis returned to his place, and
Hitler, pale and shaking with rage, was on his feet, brushing
aside Papen’s restraming hand. To the obvious dismay of
the Vice-Chancellor, the Filhrer gave to the House aU that
had been expurgated from his opening speech, and more.
Weis may have signed the death-warrant of his party but,
in doing so, he had provoked that display of uncontrolled
passion which the saner members of the Government,
zealous for the good reception of the new order in Europe,
had been so anxious to avoid. But the House was frenzied
by Hitler’s rhetoric. Again and again they rose at him and
only physical and emotional exhaustion brought him to a
close. When the tumult had subsided, Goring called Kaas
to the tribune.

The moment of crisis had come but the letter had not
arrived. Was the prelate stiU so naive that he believed in
Nazi promises or were his nerves a little shaken by the
Chancellor’s outburst and the grim incantations from with-
out? Whatever the cause, Kaas showed less courage than
the Socialist leader. He recorded the vote of the Centre in
favour of the BiU and thereby condemned his party in the
eyes of many of his faith.

In a roar of excitement the vote was taken, and in a
sudden hush Goring declared the figures. For the Govern-
ment 441; against 91. The Bill was law; Hmdenburg signed
it, and the parliamentary institutions of Germany were in
their grave.

But though the promised letter from Hitler never arrived,
the Centre Party leaders did after aU receive a written
jonfirmation of the Chancellor’s promise to the President.
Three days after the vote in the Reichstag, Hindenburg
lent a personal assurance in explicit terms:

448

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

I am glad to be able to confirm [be wrote] that the Chancellor has
given me his assurance that, even without being formally obliged
by the Constitution, he will not use the power conferred on him, by
the Enabling Act without having first consulted me. In this con-
nection I shall always endeavour to secure our intimate co-operation
and to fulfil my oath “to do justice to aU men”.

VON Hindenbueg^

Here then was the one remaining check npon Hitler’s
power, a gentleman’s agreement to consult the President,
and it may be asked why did Hindenburg not more ener-
getically defend his oath? The answer is obvious. A weary
Old Gentleman of eighty-six, of rigid mind and slow reason-
ing, anxious to avoid responsibihty and surrounded by a
pack of watch-dogs, is no match for a virile young pohtician
of forty-four, free as the air and with no inhibiting political
scruples. The agreement has the appearance of the most
sardonic hypocrisy. Had Hindenburg been younger and not
so completely under control, it is doubtful whether Hitler
would have ever entered into such an imderstanding. But
as things were it imposed no check on him at all, for,
with the signing of the Enabhng Bill, the President
simply faded from the picture and from the pubhc mind.
A new hero had arisen, Adolf Hitler, and with traditional
fickleness they shouted for him. Only in the concentration
camps Hindenburg’s name was remembered, with bitter-
ness.

The Old Gentleman spent more and more of his time in
the seclusion of Neudeck. It had been enlarged now by the
addition of Oskar’s “Naboth’s vineyard”, which a grateful
New Germany had presented to him, and soon it was to be

^ IcJi Jcann IJinen nur hestdtigen, dass der Herr Reichshanzler mir seine
Bereitwilhgheit erUdrt hat^ auch ohne formale verfassungsrechtliche
Bindung die auf Grund des Ermachtigungsgesetzes zur ergreifenden
Massnahmen nur nach vorherigem Benehmen mit rmr zu treffen. Ich werde
Jiierbei stets hestrebt sein, enge Zusammenarbeit zu wahren und getreu
meinem Eide ^fierechtiglceit gegen jedermann‘^ iiben,

VON Hindenburg

WIMAR AND NEUDECK

449

called “the smallest concentratioii camp”. Both here and in
the Palace at Berhn the tragedy of 1918 was being re-
enacted. Ludendorff had surrounded the Marshal at Spa
with those who breathed “the will to Victory”, and now
the President was studiously “protected” from all critics of
the new regime. He could not know the truth, for Papen’s
vanity would not let him admit, even to himself, how far his
schemes had miscarried, and Meissner knew that his job
depended upon Hindenburg’s ignorance.

Thus the Old Gentleman could not know that, within six
months of Hitler’s coming to power, his foreign pohcy had
very nearly provoked drastic action on the part of the
Powers and that he had only withdrawn at the last moment
in face of grave warnings from Great Britain and America.
He could not know that aU over the country the Nationalists
were being ousted from the governments and their places
taken by Nazis; that frequent clashes occurred between the
Stahlhelm and the Storm Troops, and that in many places
the Steel Helmets had been suppressed. He could not know
:hat in camps and cellars throughout Germany thousands
if his countrymen were herded like animals and beaten, in
nany cases for no better reason than that they had voted
or him. These things were hidden from him, and his only
dsitors assured him that all was well. The stories of atroci-
des were entirely false, they said, and in giving Hitler the
>ower to regenerate Germany he had performed the crown-
ag act of his career.

From time to time there may have been — ^there must
ave been — some doubts in Hindenburg’s mind as to
whether he had done the right thing. Certainly he must
ave been surprised that many of his old friends and com-
ades no longer came to see him; for there were many great
rermans, and friends of Germany from abroad, who tried
3 acquaint him of the true state of the country, but who
liled to pass that watchful Cerberus, the Secretary of
tate. But Hindenburg was very old and very tired; he

450

WEIMAK AND NEUDECK

enjoyed the quiet peace of his seclusion and became more
easily receptive of reassuring blandishments.

Every now and then he would emerge from his retire-
ment. Eace meetings delighted him, and he attended the
German Derby at Hamburg and the “Hindenburg Cup” at
Griinewald. The crowds still cheered him, but not with the
frenzy that they reserved for Hitler. The Hindenburg
Legend was a httle faded now. The national pilgrimage to
Tannenberg in August was the occasion for a fresh burst of
compliment from the Chancellor and further affirmation of
Hindenburg’s imswerving fidehty to his “Kaiser, Edng and
Lord”; and in October he was haled forth in some bewilder-
ment to summon the German people, incongruously enough,
to subscribe to Hitler’s policy of peace in withdrawing
from the Disarmament Conference and from the League of
Nations.

Did he, one wonders, have no twinges of that so sensitive
conscience? Was there no memory of that fight, in which
he had supported Stresemann so staunchly, to bring Ger-
many to Locarno and Geneva? Or had aU recollection of
those years of struggle passed, and was he waiting in
patience, but by now a little anxiously, for the day when a
regenerated Germany should recall her Emperor?

Erom time to time distinguished visitors from abroad,
eminently “safe” politically, were allowed through the
blockade, and among these on one occasion was a famous
British general on a “goodwill” mission. Because it was
desired to do him honour, for he was very distingidshed, an
aide-de-camp from the Eeichswehr was attached with in-
structions to take him round Potsdam and bring him back
to tea at the Palace. This task accomplished, the Ma.raha.1
began in his usual way to cross-examine his visitor.

“What did you think of Potsdam, General?”

“Well, sir, I confess it impressed me with the difference
between the HohenzoUerns and ourselves”, was the reply.

“Really, why?”

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

451

“In my country it is a point of tradition with our families
that generation after generation lives in the same house,
but so far as I can see, each Hohenzollern built a house
for himself.”

“Oh,” said Hindenburg heavily, “that’s very interesting;
nobody ever told me that before.”

While Hindenburg thus passed his latter days in peace
and seclusion, the new Germany which he had helped to
create was rapidly approaching a period of acute crisis. In
the space of a year Adolf Hitler had succeeded in crushing
or terrorizing into submission all forms of opposition to the
new regime, but he had failed signally to allay the rivalries
within his own party and had apparently gone contemp-
tuously out of his way to antagonize his late aUies, the
Nationahsts. With the appointment of Darre to succeed
Hugenberg as Minister of Agriculture, and of Hess, Rohm,
and Kerri as Ministers without portfoho, the Nazis now had
a majority in the Cabinet, and the remaining Nationalist
members had become no more than figure-heads.

But the figure-heads talked, and — ^with the exception of
Seldte, who seemed to welcome insult with an almost
masochistic lust — ^talked loudly. They declared that the
terms of the coalition of January 1933 had been broken,
forgetting Hitler’s declared emulation of MussoKni’s tactics.
And, in addition, they were very frightened. The Move-
ment had swung far too rapidly to the Left for their liking
or comfort, and already Goebbels was talking with dis-
tressing frequency of a second and more radical Revolution
to follow closely upon Hindenbmg’s death, an event which,
all knew, could not long be delayed. If, therefore, the
Nationahsts were to regain some of their ground there was
no time to be lost, for, once Hindenburg had passed finally
from the scene, all feared that radicahsm would be rampant
and unchecked.

The friction between the two Government parties grew
steadily and culminated in a series of incidents during the

452

AVEIMAE AND NEUDECK

first six montlis of 1934. On the anniversary of the Em-
peror’s birthday in January the monarchist organizations
were wont to hold a dinner, an annual gathering of oflficers of
the Old Army and former Court officials, purely sentimental
in character and without pohtical significance. Goebbels had
frequently referred to this “hot-bed of reaction” in scathing
terms, and on January 26, 1934, the dinner was raided by
riotous Storm Troopers, who broke up the tables, insulted
the guests, and so humihated the presiding officer, the
veteran General von Horn, that he died of a stroke two
days later. In April high Stahllielm leaders were arrested
in Stettin and sent to a concentration camp, and in June
Seldte’s car, with Seldte in it, was stoned by S.A, men at
Magdeburg.

At last Papen’s eyes were opened to the enormity of his
error. His own vanity had been wounded at the manner in
which Goring had ousted him from the Government of
Prussia, and he was frankly alarmed, like Frankenstein of
old, at the way in which this monster of his creation had
thrown ofi all control. He had been revolted by the brutali-
ties of the Terror, but was luUed by the age-old sophism that
an omelette cannot be made without breaking eggs. Now,
however, he awoke to a full realization of the degree to which
the German mind had been imprisoned and all free speech
and criticism stifled. Appalled, he raised the matter in
Cabinet and was rebuffed by Goebbels, and when he carried
his protest to the Chancellor himself, Hitler was evasive and
unhelpful. Now really roused, Papen took coimsel with the
group of young men which had grown up around him, Jung,
Bose, Tschirschky, and others, and to a man they urged hiTn
to seek the support of the President for a pubhc protest, if
necessary supported by the authority of the Reichswehr.

But the rising antagonism of the Nationahsts was among
the least of Hitler’s troubles at the moment. The inner state
of his own party was a far more pressing problem. A bitter
rivalry divided Goring and Goebbels; and depravity and

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

453

corruption were rampant. The erotic orgies of Rohm in Ber-
lin and of Heines in Breslau were common knowledge, as
was the fact that the greater part of the proceeds of the
Winterhilfe — a fund for the benefit of the unemployed
collected from house to house and door to door, only
too frequently with threats and menaces — ^went into the
pockets of the Storm Troop leaders to defray the expenses
of the liixurious establishments which many of them had
set up. To many Germans who had voted in genuine en-
thusiasm and confidence for Hitler in 1933, this record of a
government which had seized supreme power with the pro-
claimed intention of rooting out corruption and setting up
a rigid economy, came as a terrible disillusionment: while
from foreign countries, and notably from England, repre-
sentatives of the highest authorities of Church and State, not
unfavourable to the National Socialist movement, urged
upon Bfitler the necessity of setting his house in order and
cleaning up his party by legal methods.

More pressing even than this, however, was the problem
of the Storm Troops themselves. The old dispute with
Rohm, which had flared up in 1926 and again in 1930, was
now at white heat, for, with the withdrawal from the Dis-
armament Conference and the subsequent avowed policy of
rearmament, Rohm had the most pleasing visions of a
Reichswehr enlarged by the incorporation of many of his
legions, with the remainder standing behind it in a brown
phalanx of trained reserves. He considered himself and his
Storm Troops indispensable to the progress and consohda-
tion of the Revolution, and the rank and file of his followers
represented, far more genuinely than did the casuistical
Goebbels, the Left Wing radical tendencies of the party.

And they too were dissatisfied. For if the Nationalists
were alarmed at the progress of the Revolution towards the
Left, these men, who from their youth in the party had im-
bibed its pre-revolutionary propaganda, regarded it as not
having gone far enough. Indeed they were sadly disillusioned.

m

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

They had been promised the return of the Polish Corridor
and they had seen a ten-year pact of non-aggression with
Poland; they had been promised National Socialism “in our
time”, and they had seen the great industriahsts and land-
owners become still more strongly entrenched; and finally,
they had been promised honour and glory as the soldiers of
the Eevolution, and they were threatened with disband-
ment.

For, faced with an unruly body of Praetorians two and a
half m i l l ion strong and under an erratic chief, and with a
Europeuniting against him, Hitler was seeking to improve his
position by sacrificing the one to the other. The efforts made
by the British Government during the spring of 1934 to find
a disarmament formula between the French and German
theses, and thereby to bring Germany back to Geneva,
presented the Chancellor with a golden opportunity of dis-
embarrassing himself of the Brown Army, which had now
become both a threat and an incubus, and at the same
time of gaining credit with the Powers. When, therefore,
that peripatetic statesman, Mr. Anthony Eden, visited
Berhn in February 1934, he was met by Hitler with an offer
of a reduction of the S.A. by two-thirds and the institution
of a system of supervision which should verify that the
remainder should neither possess any arms nor receive any
mihtary instruction or take part in field exercises. This
offer was repeated to the British Government in April.

But German diplomacy, by its indomitable stupidity, de-
feated its own ends. All hope for its success was lost with
the peremptory closing of the negotiations by the French
Government in answer to the pubhcation of the German
mihtary budget, which showed a very extensive increase
in the appropriations.

The news of the offer and the rumours of large reductions
in their numbers to follow the annual period of leave in July,
caused great discontent in the ranks of the S.A., which found
voice through Rohm in the Cabinet. Here, however. Hitler

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

455

had the firm support of Blomherg, the Reichswehr Minister,
and of Goring, who, since he had been made a general, had
espoused the well-known doctrines of the army regarding
the S.A., and would, in any case, have opposed practically
any views advanced by Rohm. The Chancellor was also as-
sured of the loyalty of the S.S., a force now some two
hundred thousand strong, whose contempt for the S.A. was
reminiscent of the scorn evinced by the Guard for the Line
in the Old Army.

The dissensions within the party and the general feeKng
of crisis in the air had a further unexpected result. General
von Schleicher emerged from his retirement and openly
criticized the Government. He had failed to reahze that
what was merely treachery before the estabhshment of
the Totahtarian State was now regarded as high treason,
and that he no longer controlled the secret forces of
espionage. He began again to indulge his flair for shadow
Cabinet-making, and before long it was reported that he
had tried to re-establish his old contacts with Rohm. In
return for the Vice-Chancellorship under Hitler, it was
rumoured, he would agree to the appointment of Rohm as
Minister of Defence and the partial amalgamation of the
Brown Army with the Reichswehr. It was also rumoured
that Papen, Goring, and Neurath were to be excluded from
the Government and that Briming was to be offered the
Foreign Ministry. How irresponsible and unreliable these
conversations were may be judged by the fact that no com-
munication passed between Schleicher and Briining, and
that, if the latter’s name was included in the “Shadow
Cabinet” it was without his consent or knowledge. In so
far as Schleicher was concerned, the afiair was little more
than one of building castles in Spain, for he no longer had
access to the President, and was discredited and without
influence.

But in the hands of Goring and Himmler, the chief of the
S.S. and the Gestapo (Secret Pohce), the story took on

456

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

gigantic proportions. It became a plot, a conspiracy to
murder, an incipient counter-revolution to be fought with
its own weapons. A drastic “purge” of the party was planned,
which should include within its scope aU the enemies of the
regime, both past and present, to the Right and to the
Left. Lists of those to be executed were prepared, and a
certain bargaining went on whereby the friends of one were
removed from the hst of another in return for reciprocal
treatment. The date was fixed for June 16, and at the end
of May both Briining and Schleicher received warnings that
they were among the condemned. Briining left the country,
but Schleicher, regarding the affair as a passing storm which
would soon blow over, merely went into retreat on the
shores of the Starnbergersee.

Suddenly there was a new development. For a long time
Hitler had courted Mussolini in an attempt to enhst his aid
against France, but the campaign of terror and interference
which the Nazis persisted in carrying on in Austria had so
far proved a stumbling-block. Now it appeared that it was
possible for the two dictators to meet for the first time and
discuss their common problems face to face; the rendezvous
suggested was Venice, and the date the 15th and 16th of
Jime. Plans for the purge were hastily postponed and the
Fuhrer departed to meet the man from whom so many of
his ideas had been derived.

In the meantime, Papen had not been idle. He had been
the guest of the President at Neudeck, and had there dis-
closed to Hindenburg sufSicient of the true state of affairs in
Germany to upset the Old Gentleman very thoroughly.
There was, Papen said, no question of supplanting Hitler,
but steps must be taken to curb the power of such people as
Goebbels, whose Radical opportunism was a danger to aU. It
was a national reproach, and one that the European coun-
tries did not hesitate to level against Germany, that a gag
should be put upon free speech and constructive criticism.
Such had never been the object of the movement of national

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

457

resurgence as ke had visualized it, or as he had explained it
to Hindenburg, and he felt that, as one of those chiefly
responsible for bringing the new regime into power, it was
his duty to utter a protest. He proposed, with Hindenburg’s
approval, to make an important speech shortly, which might
have very severe repercussions. Should this be so, he asked
for the President’s support.

Whether Papen explained in detail to Hindenburg exactly
what was the nature of the support he desired — ^which was
in efiect the President’s authority to suppress the Goebbels
policy if necessary with the assistance of the Keichswehr — or
how much was understood by the Old Gentleman, to whom
the whole thing had come with a shock of disillusion-
ment, it is impossible to say, but certainly Papen left Neu-
deck with the impression that whatever the result of his
protest might be, he was assured of Hindenburg’s loyal
support and assistance. Being Papen, he said so in the
diplomatic circles in which he moved, and his hsteners
waited breathlessly for the approaching day.

It was before the University of Marburg, on Simday
Jime 17, that Papen made his now historic appeal. The
speech, itself a composite work, owing most to the Hebrew
genius of Edgar Jung, was a masterpiece in style and con-
tent. Throughout it had the hall-mark of greatness:

My personal obligation to Adolf Hitler and his work [said Papen]
is so great that it would be a mortal sin for me, as a man and a
statesman, not to say what must be said at this decisive stage of the
German Revolution. . . . We know full well that there are rumours
and whisperings in dark corners, but they evaporate when brought
out into the light of day. A free press ought to exist to inform the
Government with open and manly statements where corruption has
made its nest, when bad mistakes have been made, where the wrong
men are in the wrong place, and where the spirit of the German

Revolution has been sinned against If the official organs of pubhc

opinion do not throw sufficient light on the mysterious darkness
which at present hides the spirit of the German people, then a states-
man must step in and call a spade a spade. Such a step should prove

458

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

that the Government is strong enough to bear reasonable criticism,
which, as the old maxim says, only weaklmgs and fools cannot
hear. . , .

Any talk about a second wave which will complete the Eevolu-
tion has no meaning. Whoever plays with such thoughts must not
hide from himself that a third wave can easily follow a second;
that he who threatens the guillotine comes the sooner under its
knife. No race can afiord constant uprisings by the lower classes if
it wishes to have a place in history. ... In the long run no propa-
ganda and no organization, however good, can by itself maintain
confidence. A sense of trust and willingness to serve can only be
fostered by taking the people into confidence and not by working
up high feelings, especially among youth, nor by threats against
sections of the people who are helpless. The people know that heavy
sacrifices are expected of them. They will make them and follow the
Leader with implicit faith if they are allowed to have a voice in
council and action; if every word of criticism is not at once inter-
preted as of evil intent; and if patriots in despair are not branded as
enemies of the State.

The courageous tone of the speech, as well as the thinly
veiled attack upon Goebbels, met with welcoming favour
throughout the world, and it is difficult to describe the joy
with which it was received in Germany. It was as if a load
had suddenly been lifted from the German soul. The sense
of relief could almost be felt in the air. Papen had put into
words what thousands upon thousands of his countrymen
had locked up in their hearts for fear of the awful penalties
of speech. He had given fresh hope to those who had almost
gone imder in the depths of their despair. Could it mean
that a new era of toleration was really about to dawn?

But in the little town of Gera there were tumult and
a&ight. Here were assembled the party chiefs to hear
Hitler’s account of his conversation with the Duce, and to
them news and rumour came hot upon each other’s heels.
Papen, it was said, had raised the standard of counter-
revolution at Marburg and had behind him not only the
President but the Eeichswehr. Momentary panic ensued.

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

459

The leaders anxiously discussed to wliicli foreign countries
they could escape and whether, under the exchange restric-
tion, they could get funds out of G-ermany.

Saner counsels, however, prevailed, and it was decided
to meet the crisis and fight. The first suggestion, to arrest
Papen, was vetoed on the advice of Goebbels, who proposed
that no measures should be taken against the Vice-Chan-
cellor personally, lest he become a martyr, but that every
means should be employed to prevent the speech from
becoming public. It had not been broadcast, but gramo-
phone records had been made of it, and the order was at
once given for their destruction. The edition of the Frank-
furter Zeitung in which the text appeared was suppressed;
the pamphlet edition printed at the press of Papen’s own
paper, Germania, was seized — but not before a number of
people, including the writer, had secured copies — and it was
even proposed to close the frontiers to prevent the speech
from leaving the country. The Baseler Nachrichten had,
however, smuggled out a press copy, and, though its issue
was banned in Germany, it was soon in circulation every-
where. The Eadical press at once let loose a flood of invec-
tive, both in articles and caricature, with pointed references
to “effete aristocrats”, “top-hatted noblemen”, and “cavalry
captains”; while Goebbels demanded in the Angriff: “Is it
not time that this nest of stink-pots was cleaned out?”

Papen’s protest could not thus hghtly be set aside. He
had received letters of congratulation from the Crown
Prince, from Seldte, and from a number of moderate Nazi
leaders. Despite all Goebbels’s efforts the gist, at least, of
the speech had become generally known and pubhc enthu-
siasm was growing daily. On June 24, at Hamburg, on the
occasion of the German Derby, the Vice-Chancellor received
a huge ovation. The crowd forsook the Nazi salutation of
“Heil”, and reverted to the old “Hurrah” — for Papen and
for Marburg. Goebbels was also present and was hissed. In
the President’s box (Papen was acting as Hindenburg’s

460

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

deputy) the two shook hands for the benefit of press photo-
graphers. A bitter moment for them both.

But from Neudeck there came only a telegram of con-
gratulation. And as the days shpped past, and Hindenburg
made no further sign, the Nazi leaders began to regain their
courage and Papen knew that his coup had misfired. Did
Hindenburg betray him? Had he ever reaUy understood the
full meaning of what Papen had told him in the June sun-
light as they sat on the terrace at Neudeck? It was difficult
at eighty-sis suddenly to reverse his ideas and to be told
that what he had been led to beHeve for the last eighteen
months, those months so blessedly free from trouble and
responsibility, had been false. Papen wiU never know just
what had happened. He had seen the President for the last
time in Ufe.

During the week which followed in Berhn the atmosphere
seemed charged with an ever-increasing tensity, and as one
golden June day gave place to another, the presage of im-
pending tragedy grew stronger. Rumour was rife. It was
known that Ribbentrop had repeated in Paris the ofier
which Hitler had made to Eden regarding the S.A., and the
whisper went forth that, after the Storm Troops had gone
on leave in July, very few of them would return. A confer-
ence of their leaders was summoned at Munich for the end
of the week. Behind the scenes G-oring and Himmler were
feverishly pushing forward the plans which had been post-
poned from June 16, and were working on Hitler’s nerves —
always the Fuhrer’s, weak point — ^to ensure his support and
participation.

All rmsuspecting of their own danger, the several char-
acters in the drama pursued their way. Papen was uncon-
cerned as ever. He had had a long interview with Hitler in
the course of which he had tendered his resignation from the
Cabinet. This the Chancellor had refused, but added omin-
ously that while he personally agreed with much of what
had been said at Marburg, he regarded the manner of saying

TV^EIMAE AND NEUDECK

461

it as a breacii of faith. Though Papeu kaew that attempts
were now being made in Berlin to explain away the Presi-
dent’s telegram of congratulation, he persisted in regarding
the incident as closed, an attitude in which he was imitated
by most of his group. Only Edgar Jung sensed the coming
danger, but, though he went into hiding, he tried too late
to fly the country.

I met him in a secluded part of one of the many wooded
districts surrounding Berlin one afternoon in that moment-
ous week, and he was then convinced that nothing could
save him. He was entirely cahn and fatalistic, but he spoke
with the freedom of a man who has nothing before him
and therefore nothing to lose, and he told me many things.
Later two others of the “Marburg Circle” talked with me,
and I, stiU strongly under the influence of Jung’s certainty
of death, was amazed at their lack of anxiety. Though they
hinted at the fate of others, “Protective Detention” was the
worst that they envisaged for themselves. Within forty-
eight hours one of them, together with Jung and others of
my friends, was dead.

The blow fell suddenly, and without warning. In the early
hours of the morning of Saturday, June 30, Hitler at the
head of a party of S.S. raided a villa at Wiesee, in the neigh-
bourhood of Munich, and there discovered Rohm and Heines
under circumstances which definitely precluded any idea of
an immediately premeditated futsch. Heines and his Storm
Trooper paramour were despatched out of hand, but for
a long hour Hitler strove with the man who had been his
closest friend for sixteen years, the only one among his
followers with whom he was on terms of “thee” and “thou”,
and finally gave instructions that a revolver was to be left
in his cell. That Rohm disdained the way of suicide and
bravely faced a firing squad in his own cellar is to be
counted in his favour and is a strange ending to his notori-
ous and nefarious career.

These acts of justice done, the Fuhrer turned over the

2h

462

WEIMAR AND NETIDECK

furtlier work of execution to Major Bucli, tke head of the
“Disciplinary Section” of the S.S., who dealt faithfully with
many enemies of the regime in Bavaria. The memory of the
party was a long one, and among those murdered was
the seventy-eight-years-old von Kahr, who had scotched the
Biirgerhrau putsch of 1923. Though few tears need be shed
over such men as B.6hm and Heines, there was nothing in
their career which precluded them from the privilege of a fair
trial, which might or might not m due course have brought
them to the gaUows, but, if they lacked justice, how much
more so did such leaders of the S.A. as Hans Peter von
Heydebreck and Hans von Falkenhausen, nephew of the
war-time general? These men, the best type of ofldcer which
the Old Army produced, had served Hitler loyally from early
days but had criticized the brutahty which had attended
the Revolution. They too died on June 30, with many others
whose only crime was that they had placed too strong a faith
in the promises of their leader.

Meantime in Berlin, Goriug, having first assured himself
of the success of the Munich operations, launched his own
attack, fliuging his net far to right and left. Papen, placed
under arrest in his own house, faced for hours the prospect
of immediate death until imperative instructions from Hitler
placed his life out of danger. That strange quirk of loyalty
in the Fuhrer's character forbade the death of the man who
had placed him iu power. But this protection did not extend
to his staff. In the office of the Vice-Chancellor, Bose, his
first adjutant, was shot down in his room and the remainder
of the group placed under arrest, with the exception of
Jung, who had been executed earUer in the morning.

Schleicher, who had returned to Berhn when the 16th of
June had passed uneventfully, was murdered with his wife,
as they were awaiting the return of his stepdaughter to
luncheon, and it was left for this sixteen-year-old child to
find their bodies riddled on the floor. Schleicher’s closest
friend. General von Bredow, was also shot. Treviranus, who,

WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

463

most characteristically, had disregarded all wariiings, evaded
the raiding party which called at his house, slipped away
in his own car, and arrived, after a series of hairbreadth
escapes, in England.

Towards evening those who had not been shot in their
own homes were brought to Lichtefelde Barracks, the former
cadgt school of the Old Army, where a series of perfunctory
courts-martial were held with but one sentence. Here died
the handsome young Karl Ernst, who had risen rapidly
from bell captain in the Hotel am Knie to be supreme com-
mander of Storm Troops in the district of Berlin-Branden-
burg. Arrested at Bremen as he was about to leave for
Madeira, he was brought handcuffed by air to Berhn, pro-
testing his loyalty to the Leader, who but a few weeks before
had been present at his wedding. Ernst faced his death
with the cry “Heil Hitler” on his bps.

All through the nights of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday
the executions went on, the bursts of firing from the execu-
tion squads of S.S. men, among whom were the sons of
some of the most distinguished men in Germany, being
plainly heard in the still air. In other parts of the country
similar scenes were enacted, and among the victims was
Gregor Strasser, the man who had once organized Berlin
for Hitler, but whose sin was that he had negotiated with
Bruning and with Schleicher. At the same time wholesale
arrests were made on aU sides, and Hitler issued an hysteri-
cal Order of the Day, protesting his ignorance of Rohm’s
private life and his desire to make the S.A. an orgardzation
to which German mothers could confide their sons with
perfect peace of mind!

The full toU of that ghastly week-end can never be known,
but it is certain that it exceeded the figure of seventy-seven
which Hitler later admitted in his Reichstag speech of July
13, when he informed a bewildered Germany, and a shocked
and incredulous world, that he had saved the country from
a national peril of a gruesome nature. Men left their homes

464

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

on that Saturday morning never to return, and to this day
their relatives do not know when or where they died. One
woman received the first news of her husband’s murder
when his ashes were sent to her through the post by the
Secret Pohce. Others have never received a notification.

For three days the Reichswehr held aloof, keeping the ring,
but on the Tuesday (July 2) they indicated that the slaughter
must stop. Their humanitarian feehngs had not, however,
been roused before it was certain that all their rivals in the
high command of the Brown Army had been “hquidated”.
That they tolerated this political gangsterism even for three
days is a blot upon the escutcheon of the German army which
it will find difficult to erase, but a darker stain was the fact
that it was the Eeichswehr Mmister, Colonel-General (now
Field-Marshal) von Blomberg, who conveyed the con-
gratulations of the Cabinet to the Chancellor.

How much news of the ghastly week-end penetrated to
Neudeck? Very httle, it is to be beheved, and that in a
suitably prepared form. It is certain that the murder of
Schleicher and the arrest of Papen were kept from Hiuden-
burg, and it is probable that only the story of the S.A.
conspiracy was told to him. But the world, already nauseated
by the events of June 30, was shocked to hear that the
President of the Eepublic had warmly congratulated Hitler
upon his exploits;

From the reports placed before me [Hmdenburg telegraphed to
his Chancellor on July 2] I learn that you, by your determined
action and your brave personal intervention, have nipped treason in
the bud. You have saved the German nation &om serious danger.
For this I express to you my most profound thanks and sincere
appreciation.

Did Hiudenburg authorize the telegram or was it merely
sent in his name by some of those zealous officials who
“protected” him so efficiently? Let us believe that the
latter was the case, as it may well have been, for it is a fear-

WEIMAE AKD NEUDECK

466

ful thing to find Hindenburg, in the last weeks of his life,
openly condoning muider even in the name of justice.

Slowly the smoke cleared and life in Germany began to
resume its normal course. But the country was stunned and
the hand of the Secret PoHce was heavy on it. Arrests were
still made constantly, and many who could no longer bear
the strain of constant fear tried to leave the country. Some
were successful, others were turned back at the frontier,
others again effected escapes by various means. A former
member of the British House of Commons earned for him-
self the reputation of a Scarlet Pimpernel for the successful
rescues which he twice achieved.

Scarcely had Europe begun to recover from the effects of
June 30, when it was once more revolted by a second crime.
The Austrian Chancellor, the gallant little Dollfuss, whose
struggle against foreign' terrorism and interference had
earned him general admiration, was cold-bloodedly and
brutally murdered on July 25 by Austrian Nazi gunmen,
who allowed him to bleed to death without the service of a
doctor or a priest.

In the pohtical welter which followed, a solution was
presented to the problem of what should be done with
Papen. With that extraordinary good fortune which safe-
guards him, Papen had survived the events of June 30, which
had claimed the fives of two of his friends and endangered his
own existence and that of many of his circle. He had refused
to attend further sessions of the Cabinet but he had not
resigned the Vice-Chancellorship. In justice to him, it must
be said that the possibilities of resignation under a dictator-
ship are strictly limited, and Lenin’s famous telegram to
Krassin may be recalled: “Soviet representatives are not
allowed to resign; if they are imsatisfactory we dismiss
them”. Clearly, however, Papen’s fife was under a constant
threat if he remained either in the Government or in
Germany; Goring would have shot him on June 30, and
Goebbels had not forgotten the strictures of Marburg.

466 WEIMAR AND NEUDECK

Hitler did not desire his death, and here he was at one with
the President.

It had reached Hindenburg’s ears that Papen had been
in danger, and, as he felt his strength faihng, he laid upon
Hitler the solemn charge of his protection. Nothing must
happen to “Franzchen”. To the end he was true to this one
friend of his bosom, and in his relations with Papen there
was none of that marked lack of loyalty which had marred
his parting from Ludendorff, from Groner, and from Briin-
iug. This act of protection was to be the last occasion on
wMch he exercised his waning authority.

The Chancellor agreed and searched his mind for a
solution. It came from an unexpected quarter.

The assassius of Dollfuss had claimed the right of
negotiation with the German Minister in Vienna, thereby
incriminating him in their guilt. The unfortunate Dr.
Bieth, who had been appointed by Briming, is beheved to
have had no previous knowledge of the plot, hut he was
recalled and dismissed, a victim of circumstances. To
Papen was awarded the position of Minister of “Peace and
Goodwill”, as the Fuhrer’s personal representative, and
in Vienna, in comparative safety, he awaited the further
caprice of fate.^

Hindenburg’s long life was drawing to an end. He had
been weakening all spring and summer, and the discon-
certing afiairs revealed to him first by Papen and then by
the Government had worried him exceedingly. In the last

^ With, that indefatigable energy which has characterised his whole
career, Papen laboured unceasingly to further the policy of bringing
Austria within the pohtical orbit of Germany. For two years his efforts
met with a signal lack of success, but in the European welter following
the Itahan victory in Ethiopia, fate agam smiled on him . His ambitions
were realised in the Austro-German Treaty of Eeconciliation signed in
July 1936, whereby Austria proclaimed herself a German State. The
success of his pohcy has restored Papen’s political fortunes to a marked
degree, and such is his remarkable political resihence that more may
well be heard of this strange figure in German history.

WEIMAE AND NEUDECK

467

week of July lie began to fail fast and tke first bulletins
betokening the end were issued on the 31st. There was
nothing dramatic in his passing; it was just that of any
other very tired and fundamentally pious old gentleman.
Though he had in his last days moments of deep regret and
contrition, he was consoled by the confident behef that
for seventy years he had done his duty as he had seen it, or
as others had indicated it to him. Now he was dying quietly.

On the afternoon of August 1 he called the great doctor
Sauerbruch to his bedside:

“You have always told me the whole truth and you will
do so now,” he said. “Is Friend Hein [Matthias Claudius’s
euphemism for Death] in the Schloss and waitiag?”

“No, Herr Feldmarschall, but he is walking round the
house.”

Hindenburg was silent for a moment.

“Thank you, Sauerbruch, I wanted to know; and now
I wiU confer with the Lord a httle.”

He kept the doctor by him while he fumbled with the
leaves of his Bible. Sauerbruch wanted to give him more
light, but the Marshal stopped him.

“Leave the curtain as it is,” he said; “I have known by
heart for a long time what I want to read.”

In a soft whispering voice, very unlike his normal
mihtary gruffness, he read for a while; then laying down
the book, he called to the doctor again.

“It is aU right, Sauerbruch; now teU Friend Hein he can
come in.”

Early on the morm’ng of August 2, just twenty years
after the declaration of the World War which had called
Hindenburg from obscurity to fame, the black-and-white
Prussian standard above the Castle of Neudeck was lowered
to half-mast. After seventy years of service, the Marshal
had laid down his last command.

EPILOGUE

Even in death, it seemed, Hindenhurg followed the path
of service, for he could have rendered no greater boon to
Hitler than by dying at this moment. The events of June 30
and the assassination of Dollfuss had gravely impaired the
Chancellor’s position at home, and had deprived him of
all support abroad. The illusion which Hitler had sought to
create of a Germany standing firm and united behiud her
FuTirerhadi been shattered, and within theReich itself he had
dangerously imperilled his connections with the proletariat
and with the lower middle class from which the popular
support of his party had been originally so largely drawn.
To the disafiected elements of the Sociahsts, Communists,
Jews, Catholics, and Protestants, he had now added many
disgrxmtled Storm Troopers and disillusioned Nationahsts,
and for the time being he was dependent upon the support
of the S.S., the Gestapo, and the Reichswehr. Germany had
temporarily been handed over to the tender mercies of
Goring and Himmler; the S.S. had become the new Prae-
torian guard. So greatly had the prestige of the Revolution
been damaged that it seemed doubtful whether Hitler could
recast the spell over the German people.

It was at this moment that Hindenburg died, presenting
Hitler with complete and undisputable control of power,
and with a providential opportunity for concentrating the
full force of propaganda upon the country. Within an hour
of the Marshal’s death, it was annormced that the office of
President would be merged with that of the Chancellor,
and Hitler became the head of the State and Supreme

468

EPILOGUE

469

Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the Eeich. On
the same day he received the oath of allegiance from the
Reichswehr, and set about his preparations for a national
referendum which should be the ratification by the people
of this new regime.

Thus the funeral of Hindenburg at Tannenberg on
August 6, a pageant of military solemnity and splendour,
had the dual nature of a last tribute to a great soldier and
a clever move in an election campaign. In the orations
much stress was laid upon the trust which the old Field-
Marshal had reposed in the young Corporal, and there was
a strong implication that Hitler had now acceded to power
in apostohc succession to Hindenburg. The tradition must
be maintained, the torch carried on.

But the world was waiting for something else. Con-
currently with Hindenburg’s death there were rumours of
a political testament of great importance. The document,
it was said, had been drawn up not long before and con-
tained certain injunctions to Hitler, laying upon him
obhgations, grave and explicit. As the date of the funeral
approached, the rumours increased in number and irre-
sponsibility, but the Ministry of Propaganda issued a formal
denial that any will or testament of a pohtical nature
existed. Public interest in the question subsided and was
transferred to the feverish efforts of the party to secure an
overwhelming personal vote of confidence in the Fuhrer at
the referendum on August 19.

Few pohtical organizations are so acutely efficient as the
National Socialist Party. On August 15, four days before
the country went to the polls, a statement was issued from
Hitler’s country estate at Obersalzberg. The missing docu-
ment had been “found” and brought to the Reichsfilhrer by
Herr von Papen, on behalf of Colonel von Hindenburg. It
was to be pubhshed at the special request of Herr Hitler.

The document, which was calculated to carry much
weight with any who had not yet decided to cast a vote of

470

EPILOGUE

approval on August 19 , implicitly bequeathed the destiny
of Germany to Hitler. Explicitly it reaffirmed Hinden-
burg’s faith in an Imperial Germany, and by inference it
made his successors the trustees of the principle of monarchy.
It laid particular emphasis on the importance of the Reichs-
wehr as the guardian of tradition in the transitional period
now over and in the German State of to-day and to-morrow.

To the German Nation and to its Chancellor, my testament.

In 1919 I wrote in my message to the German Nation: ‘‘We were
at the end! Like Siegfried under the cunning javelin of the furious
Hagen, our exhausted front collapsed. In vain had we endeavoured
to drink new life from the perenmal spring of native strength. It was
our task now to save the remaining strength of our army for the
later reconstruction of the Fatherland. The present was lost. There
remained now only hope — and the future!

^‘I understand the idea of escape from the world which obsessed
many ofl&cers, in view of the collapse of all that was dear and true to
them. The desire to know nothing more of a world where seething
passions obscured the vital qualities of our nation so that they could
no longer be recognized, is humanly conceivable. And yet — ^but I
must express it frankly, just as I think! Comrades of the once grand,
proud German army* Can you speak of losing heart? Thmk of the
men who more than a hundred years ago created for us a new Father-
land. Their religion was their faith in themselves and in the sanctity
of their cause. They created the new Fatherland, basing it not on
freak doctrinaire theories foreign to our nature, but building it up on
the foundations of the free development of the framework and of the
principles of our own common weal! When it is able, Germany will
go along this way again.

‘T have the firm conviction that now, as in those times, the links
with our great rich past will be preserved, and, where they have been
broken, will be restored. The old German spirit will again assert
itself triumphantly, though only after thorough purgings in the fires
of suffering and passion.

‘^Our opponents knew the strength of this spirit; they admired and
hated it in times of peace; they were astonished at it and feared it
on the battlefields of the Great War. They sought to explain our
strength to their peoples by using the empty word “Organization’’.
They passed over in silence the spirit which lived and moved behind

EPILOGUE 471

the veil of this word. But in and with this spirit we will again cour-
ageously construct.

“Germany, the focus-point of so many of the inexhaustible values
of human civilization and culture, will not go under so long as it
retains faith in its great historical world mission. I have the sure
confidence that the depth and strength of thought of the best in our
Fatherland will succeed in blending new ideas with the precious
treasures of former times, and from them will forge m concert lasting
values for the welfare of our Fatherland.

“This is the unshakable conviction with which I leave the bloody
battlefield of international warfare. I have seen the heroic agony of
my Fatherland and never, never will beheve that it was its death
agony.

“For the present our entire former Constitution lies buried under
the flood-tide raised by the storm of wild pohtical passions and re-
sounding phrases which has apparently destroyed all sacred tradi-
tions. But this flood-tide will subside. Then, from the eternally
agitated sea of human life, will again emerge that rock to which the
hope of our fathers clung, that rock upon which, nearly half a century
ago, the future of our Fatherland was, by our strength, confidently
founded — ^the German Empire^ When the national idea, the national
consciousness, has again been raised, then, out of the Great War —
on which no nation can look back with such legitimate pride and with
such clear conscience as we — as well as out of the bitter severity of
the present days, precious moral fruits will ripen for us. The blood
of all those who have fallen in the faith of the greatness of the
Fatherland will not then have flowed in vain. In this assurance I lay
down my pen and rely firmly on you — the Youth of Germany.”

I wrote these words in the darkest hours and in the conviction that
I was fast approaching the close of a life spent in the service of the
Fatherland. Fate disposed otherwise for me. In the spring of 1925
a new chapter of my life was opened. Again I was wanted to co-
operate m the destiny of my nation. Only my firm confidence in
Germany’s inexhaustible resources gave me the courage to accept
the office of Reichsprdsident This firm behef lent me also the moral
strength to fulfil unswervingly the duties of that difficult position.

The last chapter of my life has been for me, at the same time, the
most difficult. Many have not understood me in these troublous times
and have not comprehended that my only anxiety was to lead the dis-
tracted and discouraged German nation back to self-conscious unity.

472

EPILOGUE

I began and conducted the duties of my office in the consciousness
that a preparatory period of complete renunciation was necessary in
domestic and international politics. From the Easter message of the
year 1925 — in which I exhorted the nation to the fear of God, to
social justice, to internal peace and political sanity — onwards, I
have not become tired of cultivating the mward umty of our nation
and the sefficonsciousness of its best qualities. Moreover, I was
conscious that the political constitution and form of government
which were provided for the nation in the hour of its greatest distress
and greatest weakness did not correspond with the requirements and
characteristics of our people. The time must arrive when this know-
ledge would become general. It therefore seemed my duty to rescue
the country from the morass of external oppression and degradation,
internal distress and self-disruption, without jeopardizing its exist-
ence, before this hour struck.

The guardian of the State, the Reichswehr, must be the symbol and
ffim support for this superstructure. On the Reichswehr, as a firm
foundation, must rest the old Prussian virtues of self-realized duti-
fulness, of simplicity, and comradeship The German Reichswehr
had, after the collapse, cultivated the contmuation of the high tradi-
tions of the Old Army in typical style. Always and at all times the
Reichswehr must remain the pattern of State conduct, so that, un-
biased by any internal political development, its lofty mission for
the defence of the country may be put to good account.

When I shall have returned to my comrades above, with whom I
have fought on so many battlefields for the honour and glory of the
nation, then I shall call to the younger generation:

''Show yourselves worthy of your ancestors, and never forget, if
you would secure the peace and well-being of your native country, that
you must be prepared to give up everything for its peace and honour.
Never forget that your deeds will one day become Tradition.^’

The thanks of the Field-Marshal of the World War and its Com-
mander-in-Chief are due to all the men who have accomplished the
construction and organization of the Reichswehr.

Internationally the German nation had to wander through a
Gethsemane. A frightful treaty weighed heavily upon it, and through
its increasingly evil effects threatened to bring about the collapse of
our nation. For a long tune the surrounding world did not understand
that Germany must hve, not only for its own sake, but also for the
sake of Europe and as the standard-bearer of Western culture. Only

EPILOGUE

473

step by step, without awaking an overwhelming resistance, were the
fetters which bound us to be loosened. If many of my comrades at
that time did not understand the difficulties that beset our path,
history will certainly judge rightly, how severe, but also how neces-
sary m the interests of the maintenance of German existence, was
many a State act signed by me.

In unison with the growing internal recovery and strengthening
of the German nation, a progressive and — God willing — a generous
contribution towards the solution of all troublesome European
questions could be striven after and obtained, on the basis of its own
national honour and digmty. I am thankful to Providence that, in the
evening of my life, I have been allowed to see this hour of the nation’s
renewal of strength. I thank all those who, by unselfish devotion to
the Fatherland, have co-operated with me in the reconstruction of
Germany. My Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, and his movement have
together led the German nation above aU professional and class
distmctions, to internal umty — a decided step of historical import-
ance. I know that much remains to be done, and I desire with my
whole heart that the act of reconciliation which embraces the entire
German Fatherland may be the forerunner of the act of national
exaltation and national co-operation.

I depart from my German people m the full hope that what I
longed for in the year 1919, and which was coming slowly to fruition
in January 1933, may mature to the complete fulfilment and per-
fection of the historical mission of our nation.

In this firm belief in the future of the Fatherland, I close my eyes in
peace.

VON Hindenburg

Berlin, May 11th, 1934

There did not lack those who at once proclaimed the wiU
a forgery, adducing in support of their contention the
differences of literary style in the text and the fact that it
was only produced on the eve of the referendum. There
were those who said that the original text of the will had
been mutilated, that certain passages had been added and
certain excisions made. It was darkly hinted that a true
copy, containing an abject apology from Hindenburg for
having failed to restore the monarchy, had been smuggled

474

EPILOGUE

out of Germany and was now in the hands of the Emperor
at Doom; and another version of the same story declared
that, in a covering letter to the Emperor, Hindenburg had
stated that, before he appointed Hitler Chancellor, he had
received a definite promise that the monarchy would be re-
stored. One Austrian paper even went so far as to say that
the Emperor was making use of his copy of the will in
his financial negotiation with the Eeich.

Amid this jungle of rumour and conjecture it is im-
possible to define the truth with any clarity. But from such
evidence as has been produced and as a result of such re-
searches as it has been possible to make, the writer has
formed certain personal behefs. To him it seems that the
wiU, as pubhshed on August 15, is genuine. That it was kept
back until its pubhcation could prove of definite advantage
in the referendum campaign is very probable, but there
seems to be no reason so far produced for beheving it a
forgery.

The question of difference in style may be dismissed
when one considers the composite authorship of Hinden-
burg’s memoirs in 1919 and the fact that the Marshal was
surrounded by a totally diSerent circle in 1934. It is prob-
able that the wiU also was of composite origin. Just as
General von Mertz and another collaborated in the writing
of the memoirs, so may Hindenburg’s intimates have
assisted him in drawing up his testament. It would be very
strange if they had not.

The date, too, is of importance. The will was signed by
Hindenburg at Berlin in May 1934, before he left the Palace
for Neudeck for the last time. At that moment he had no
reason to be anything but satisfied with the results of his
handiwork on January 30, 1933. So far as he knew every-
thing was progressing swimmingly, and great care had been
taken that he should continue to beheve so. The disclosures
made to him, first by Papen and later by Hitler, ordy
occurred after his arrival in Neudeck, when it would have

EPILOGUE

476

been difficult to prepare a new testament even bad be
thought of doing so. The text as it stands has all the ball-
marks of that satisfaction which may well be credited to
Hindenburg at the moment.

Of all the stories regarding suppressed codicils and
covering letters, most may be discounted as fiction and
propaganda. That which seems least fantastic is that a
second document did accompany the testament and in it
Hindenburg conveyed paternal injunctions to his successor.
It is said that these were three in number: to keep the Reichs-
wehr above politics; to re-introduce conscription; and to
restore the monarchy. The first of these Hitler, despite out-
ward appearances, has so far succeeded in doing; the second
he has done also. Time alone will show whether the third
injunction will be fulfilled and the Spectre of Spa be laid for
ever.

INDEX

Adlon, Hotel, Berlin, conference between
Palkenhajm and Hotzendorf at, 55,
representatives of Right, with. Erz-
berger, meet at, 101
Ailette, the, German preparations for
offensive (May 1918) on, 160
Aisne, German retreat to the, 46
Aix-la-ChapeUe, mutmy of German
garrison at, 196, 201, 339
Albert, Kmg of the Belgians, Brumng
submits programme of treaty revision
to, 380

Albrecht, Duke of Wurttemberg, created
Eield-Marshal, 81

Alexander m, Tsar, 66, 86, 116, 117, 193
[Tsaritsa, 86]

Alexeiev, General, 66
Allied Offensive (1918), 156, 157, 166,
170

Alsace-Lorraine, question of its retention
in German hands, 112, 113; German
surrender of, 168, 276, 276, 277, 278
Altona, street-fighting at, 405
Alvensleben, Werner von, 423, 431, 432
Amerongen, ex-Kaiser’s residence at,
228, 240

Amiens, German drive agamat (1918),
147-149, 150, 166

Angnfft the, Goebbela attacks Hinden-
burg in, 333, his invective on pubhca-
tion of Marburg speech in, 469
Antwerp, FaUsenhayn’s decision to
capture, 36

Arabic, sinking of the, 92
Armentieres, its capture attempted by
Falkenha3m, 43, German capture of,
149

Armistice, the, German decision to pro-
pose an, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166,
167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174,
175, 186, 188, 199, 206; terms of,
206, 209, 241, 288; signmg of, 188-189,
206, 208, 209, 240
Arras, British attack before, 97
Article 48 of Constitution, 329-330, 344,
346, 347

Asqmth, Earl of Oxford and, 153

August-Wilhelm, Prince, 184

Auguste Victoria, Empress, 42, 53, 72,
149, 241

Augustovo, forest of, destruction of
10th Russian Army in, 63

Aiis meinem Leben, Hmdenburg’s book
of memoirs, 17, 19, 93, 167, 228-230,
235, 250, 474

Austria-Hungary, her possible negotia-
tion of separate peace, 47, 123-124;
proposed Alhed dismemberment of,
123; disruptive agitation in (1918),
161, collapse of, 160

Austro-German Treaty of Reconciha-
tion, 466 n.

Austro-Hungarian Army, 37, 38, 39, 40,
41, 47, 48-49, 52, 53, 64, 55, 60, 82,
179

Avesnes, German advanced Great
GH.Q. at, 143, 144, 146, 147, 162,
163, 164, 156, 159

Baden, Grand Duke of, visit of Erz-
berger to, 68

Bailleui, German capture of, 149

Baku, penetrated by German expedi-
tionary force, 135

Bank of England, conversation with
Sohacht (Summer, 1928) in, 324-325

Bapaume, Town Hall blown up by
Germans, 94 71.; German capture of,
148

Baseler Nachnchten smuggles out press
copy of Marburg speech, 469

Basle, meetmg of Experts at, 351, 368,
361

Bassermann, 104

Batoum, penetrated by German expedi-
tionary force, 135

Bauer, Colonel, 67, 70-71, 104, 106, 168,
267 n., 290 n.

Bauer, Gustav, 164, 218, 219, 248

Bavaria, Crown Prmce of. See Rup-
precht

477

2i

478

INDEX

Bavaria, King of, visited by Erzberger,
168 ; deposed, 189

Bavarian defence force, formation of,
179

Bavarian People’s Party, 255, 256, 323
Bavarian Soviet Republic, installation
of, 189

Beaumont, Maurice, 204 n.

Belgian independence, question of,
112-113, 114-115, 137, 153, 155
Bellevue, Schloas, Hmdenburg and
Ludendorff received at: (i) July 7, 13,

1917, 103-104, 107, (ii) October 26,

1918, 177, 178; Bethmann Hollweg at
(July 12, 1917), 105-106, meeting of
Crown Council at (i) September 11,
1917, 114, 116; (ii) January 2, 1918,
129-130, 138, 152

Below, General, 22
Benedek, 372
Bene§, Eduard, 381, 382
Bentmck, Count, 240
Berg, von, 316

Berlin, meetmg of Crown Council at
(October 2, 1918), 165, 166
Bernstorff, Count von, 107, 231, 233,
236

Beaeier, General von, 85, 87
Bethmann Hollweg, Theobald von,
abilities, 103, 106-107, 155; and the
adoption of unrestricted U-boat war-
fare, 46, 88-89, 91, 92, 101, 171; and
the dismissal of Ealkenhayn, 52, 69,
Tirpitz’ plan advoeatmg his dismissal,
53; decides “there can be no stai-ibs
quo*", 66, concedes proclamation of
Polish Kingdom, 86, 87; his conviction
of Germany’s ultimate defeat, 100,
102, 104, 107; on proposed restoration
of Belgian mdependence, 112-113; dis-
missal of, 84, 100-107, 108, 163, 177;
oSered Embassy at Constantinople,
107 71., 396; on List of “war-cnminals”,
231

Beumelburg, his Biography of Bismarck,
420

Bismarck, 103, 141, 271, 287, 347, 385,
386, 420, 447

Black Reichswehr, 253, 274, 298
Blockade, Allied, 77, 88, 100, 155, 160,
211, 217, 239

Blomberg, Eield-Marshal Baron von,
300, 431, 443, 455, 464
Blucher, 149, 282, 286
Bohm-Ermoih, General, 41
Bolshevik propaganda, 133-134, 151,
188, 293

Bdrsen-Zeitung, Kuhlmann attacks
Supreme Command in, 141
Bose, 452, 462
Boy-Ed, Captain, 395
Bracht, Eranz, 403
Braun, Otto, 255, 349, 401-403
Brauweder, Heinz, 298 n
Bredow, General von, 302 ti , 431, 462
Bredt, 303-304

Bremen, naval mutmy at, 189
Brest-Litovsk, Hmdenhurg’s G H.Q at,
68, 69, 71, 81, Prince Leopold’s
G H Q at, 121, 122, 131
Breat-Litovsk, Treaty of, 88, 124-125,
127-128, 131, 132, 133, 134, 136, 138,
139, 151, 182, 206
Bnand, Aristide, 280, 284
Britannique, Hotel, Spa. See Spa, Ger-
man Great G H.Q at
Brockdorii-Rantzau, Count, 216, 284,
295

Brown Army, see Storm Troops, Hitler’s
Bruning, Heinrich, character, abihties
and early career, 303-304, 320, 328,
338, 339-340, 342, 353, 354, 386, 397,
opposes mcrease m Civil Servants’
salaries, 320, 321, selection as Chan-
cellor, 328, 337-338, 340-341, 345,
opposes apphcation of Article 48 of
Constitution, 329-330, 342, and the
evacuation of the Rhineland, 329,
340, 343, and the adoption of financial
reforms, 341 -342, 343, 344-345, and the
ratification of the Young Plan, 341,
343, 344-345, his first interview

with Hmdenburg, 342-343; appomted
Chancellor, 346, as Chancellor, 249,
346-347, 349, 351, 352, 372, 394-395,
his designation as the “Hunger Chan-
cellor”, 346, 349, his proposal to apply
Article 48 of Constitution, 347, his
financial reforms, 347, 348-349, 358;
warns foreign governments of German
economic crisis, 348, 349; opposition
to National Socialist menace, 348,
351, 352, 363, 354, 360, 378, 379, 399;
his dismissal demanded by Harzhurg
Opposition, 349, and the cancellation
of reparations, 349, 351, 354, 360, 361,
379, 380, 388, 400, and the disarma-
ment question, 349, 351, 354, 379;
his proposal to mclude Nazis in
Government, 351, 379, and the re-
election of Hindenburg as president,
351-353, 354-355, 359, 361-362, 363-
364, 366-368, 369, 372, 373, 374, 403;
refuses to stand for presidency, 363;

INDEX

479

Brunmg, Heinrich — continued

his proposal to restore the monarchy,
353-354, 356, 356, 359, 367-368, his
interview with Hmdenburg (Novem-
ber 11, 1931), 356-358, on his Fourth
Emergency Decree, 358, reconstructs
his Cabmet, 358, loyalty of his Cabmet
to, 368-359, 398; -Hmdenburg com-
bmation. Foreign Powers and the,
359; his resignation demanded by
Hugenberg, 362-363, 371, his resigna-
tion demanded by Hitler, 363, 371;
defended by Schleicher before
Hmdenburg, 364-365, pleads on
Schleicher’s behalf before Hmden-
burg, 366; his scheme for the ex-
propriation of bankrupt estates, 366,
376, 377, 380, 388, 422, and Hinden-
burg’s proposal for the formation of
a new Cabmet (April 1932), 372-373;
the campaign of Schleicher to secure
his resignation, 373, 374, 375, 376,

380- 381, 383, 384, 385, 389-390, 397,
419; his proposed new form of govern-
ment m Prussia, 402, his negotiations
with the Nazis for a coalition govern-
ment m Prussia, 373-374, 386-387,
390, 391, 402, 403; and the suppression
of Hitler’s Storm Troops, 374, 376,
his plan for a general treaty revision,
379-380, his proposed tariff agreement
with Czechoslovakia, 381, 382, and a
general European tariff agreement,

381- 382, hia formula for the securing
of equahty of armaments, 382-384,
387-388, 393, 401; and the passage of
the Finance Bill (May 1932), 384; his
resignation demanded by Hmdenburg
(May 1932), 384, and the resignation
of Groner, 386, 386, his conversation
with Schleicher (May 1932), 385-386,
427, his proposals readjustmg the bud-
gets of mumcipaiities and Social In-
surance mstitutions, 388, Schleicher’s
advances for a reconcihation with,
390; his mterview with Meissner (May
28, 1932), 390-391; his interview with
Hmdenburg (May 29, 1932), 391-393;
his resignation of the Chancellorship,
392-396, vii, 397, 419; his interview
with the American Ambassador (May
30, 1932), 393-394; offered German
Embassy in London, 395, loyalty of
the Centre Party tOj 399; and Ebtler’s
suggested motion to depose Hinden-
burg from the presidency, 410-411;
his offer to agree to Schleicher’s post-

Bruning, Heinrich — continued
ponement of Reichstag, 427, 428, re-
ceives Schleicher on latter’s dismissal
from Chancellorship, 429, his election
speech at Kaiserlautern (February
1933), 438, takes refuge from Brown
Terror, 441; and the passage of Hitler’s
Enablmg BiU, 446, rumoured offer by
Hitler of Foreign Mimstry to, 455,
leaves the country, 456
Brunswick mounts Red Flag, 189
Brussilov, General, 67, 70
Buch, Major, 462

Buchan, John (Lord Tweedsmuir), 18
Bucharest, German entry mto, 82
Bulgaria, question of her joining Central
Powers, 46, 47; entry mto war of, 62,
loyal adhesion to Cential Powers of,
123, signs Armistice, 160, 164
Billow, Prince von, 8 ti., 32, 101, 103-104,
107, 108, 271
Burgerbrau putsch, 462
Bussche, Major von dem, 70-71, 164, 167

“Cabmet of Barons.” See Papen
Calais, Allied conference at (February
1917), 97; German drive agamst
(April 1918), 149, 160. See Channel
ports, German drive agamst the (1914)
Camarilla, Palace, the, its formation on
the adhesion of Meissner, 270, 299,
324, their domination of Hmdenburg
durmg his second presidency, 60, 110,
their proposal to make use of Article
48 of Constitution, 329, 330; their
attitude to Brunmg as Chancellor,
347, 364; and the re-election of Hm-
denburg to the presidency, 366;
jealousies m (February 1932), 366,
them negotiations with the Nazi
leaders (May 1932), 387; and the dis-
missal of Brunmg from the Chan-
cellorship, 394, 416; and the appomt-
ment of Papen as Chancellor, vu; and
the dismissal of Schleicher from the
Chancellorship, 422

Cambrai, meeting of German war-
council at, 80, 81, 83, 94
Caprivi, 271

Centre Party, the, and the resolution
(October 16, 1916) abdicatmg Reichs-
tag’s power in favour of the Supreme
Command, 90; and the dismissal of
Bethmann HoUweg, 106; and the
German Peace Resolution (July 19,
1917), 112; and the dismissal of Hert-
hng from the Chancellorship, 161;

480

INDEX

Centre Party — continued

and the appointment of Bauer as
Chancellor {June 1919), 218; and the
acceptance of the Peace Treaty, 219,
and the proposed appomtment of
Gessler to the presidency, 253; their
nomination of Marx as candidate m
the presidential election (1925), 265,
267, and the reorganization of the
Reichawehr, 289; their support of
Stresemann’s foreign pohcy, 295;
their possible co-operation with the
Nationalist Party (January 1927),
308, 309; and the raising of the salaries
of Civd Servants, 320, and the passage
of the Confessional Schools Bill, 320,
321, and the general election of May
1928, 322, and the appointment of
Muller as Chancellor, 323, and the
ratification of the Young Plan, 334,
341-342, 343, 344, 345, and the
appointment of Marx as Chancellor
(January 1927), 309; possibility of
them forming a coahtion government
with the Eight (December 1929), 337,
their negotiations with the Nazis for
the formation of a government m
Prussia, 386, 390, 401; their support
of Bhndenburg’s re-election as presi-
dent, 398, 403, and the general elec-
tion of July 1932, 405, 406, and
Hitler’s proposal to form a coahtion
government with (August 1932), 410,
417; Hitler’s negotiations to secure a
working majority m the Reichstag
together with, 437; and the general
election of March 1933, 440; and the
passage of Hitler’s Enablmg Bill, 446,
446, 447

Champagne, French offensive m, 64,
63 n.

Channel ports, Grerman drive against the
(1914), 36, 37, 43

Charleviile, German Imperial G.H.Q. at
(October 1914), 34

Chateau de la Fraineuse, Spa. See Spa

ChSteau-Thierry, American resistance
at, 151

Chemin des Dames, the, French offensive
on, 97, 99; German attack along, 150-
161

Chenstokhova, Hmdenburg’s G.H.Q. at,
conference at, 41

Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston, 37, 93, 316

Civil Servants, salaries of, biU raising,
319-321

Clausewitz, Carl von, 237

Clemenceau, Georges, 148
Coblenz, German Imperial G H Q. at
(August 1914), 6, 12, 13, 15
Cologne mounts Red Flag, 189, evacua-
tion of, 282, meeting of Hitler and
Papen at, 426, 430

Committee of Enquiry (November 1919),
236-239, 257

Committee of Seven, 113, 114, 115
Communist Party, the, joms the clamour
for constitutional reform (September
1918), 160, stages counter-demonstra-
tion at Konigsberg (June 1922), 245,
and the presidential election (1925),
255, 266, and the mihtary haison with
the Soviet Union, 295; and the general
election of May 1928, 322, and the
re-election of Hindenburg as presi-
dent, 368, 371, and the general elec-
tion of July 1932, 405-406, 411; at
Reichstag session (September 9, 1932),
411; at Reichstag session (September
12, 1932), 411, 412-413, and the
general election of November 1932,
415, and the appomtment of Hitler as
Chancellor (January 1933), 434; and
the general election of March 1933,
438, 439, 440, Hitler’s suppression of
(February 1933), 439, 445, its imph-
cation m Reichstag Fire, 439, 442,
transportation to concentration camps
(March 1933) of members of, 441
Communist rismgs (1923), 243, 253
Conference of Ambassadors, 279, 280
Confessional Schools BiU, 319, 320, 321
Conscription, mtroduction of, 475
Conservative Party, the, 111, 183
Coronel, battle of, 88
Courland, German measures regardmg,
125, 127, 128, 135

Court of Honour (1922), 221, 301, 357
Ci’ayenberg, Countess von, 226
Cuno, 248

Curtius, Julius, 332, 358
Czechoslovakia, her proposed inclusion
m Locarno Pact; Brurung’s proposed
tariff agreement with, 381, 382
Czemin, Count, 56 n., 123, 124, 132,
184 71.

Czernovitz, Russian capture of, 67

D’Abernon, Lord, 275, diaries of, 244,
247, 276, 293

Dago, German capture of, 121
Daily Telegraph episode (1908), the, 102
Dankl, General, 38
Darr6, 451

INDEX

481

David, 105

Davis, Norman, 382, 383
“Dawes Loan”, 274

Dawes Plan, 249, 274, 324, 326, 326,
335

Debts, foreign, 274-275, 349, 380
Democrat Party, the, 253, 266, 323
Denmark, German expectations regard -
mg her entry mto war, 89, 92
Deutsche Zeitung, Hmdenburg attacked
m the, 333, 368-369
Dietrich, Doctor, 358
Dimitroi, 439

Disarmament Conference, 349, 354, 379,
382, 393, 401, 414; German with-
drawal from the, 450, 453
Disarmament question, the, 246, 279-
280, 347, 349, 351, 354, 379, 382-383,
387-388, 393-394, 401, 453
Ditfurih, 259

Doberitz, proposed removal of Hmden-
burg to, 440

Doom, removal of Wilhelm II to, 240
Douaumont, Prench capture of, 82, 91,
94, 97

Doullens, meetmg of Allied conference
at, 148

Drews, Doctor, 185, 187
Dntte Garde group, 299
Duisberg, 314

Dusterberg, Colonel, 368, 370, 371

Eastern Front, the, retention of German
troops on (1918), 136, 148
East Prussia, proposed settlement of ex-
Service men m, 310-311, 315, scheme
for expropriation of bankrupt estates
in, 366, 376, 377, 388, 422, 423. See
Landbuud

East Prussian campaign, Hmdenburg’s
(Nov.-Dee. 1914), 41-42, 43-44
Ebert, Friedrich, attributes, 250-261,
his friendship with Gessler, 252;
association of Meissner with, 268, 269,
on hearmg news of Armistice pro-
posal, 168; and the abdication of the
Emperor, 187, 189, 192, 206-207;
becomes Chancellor, 201; as Chan-
cellor, 207, 211, 250-251, 297; im-
prisoned in Chancellery, 297, and the
proclamation of the Sociahat Eepub-
lic, 201; his telephone conversation
with Grdner (November 9, 1918),
207-208, 210, 211; and the army resolu-
tion (December 16, 1918) of the Con-
gress of Workmen’s and Soldiers’
Councils, 211-212, 213; his habit of

Ebert, Friedrich — continued

conferrmg with Grdner by telephone,
212, and Hmdenburg’s proposed
offensive m East Prussia (February
1919), 214, hia election as president of
the Repubhc, 216, 256, as president,
251-252, 262, 263, 278, 329; his action
on the receipt of the first conditions
of peace, 216; and the revised peace
conditions, 217, 219, 220, 221; con-
firmation of his presidency, 256-257,
269, and the appointment of Seeckt
as General Commandmg the Reichs-
wehr, 289, 291, death of, 250, 251,
252, 276, unveiling of his bust in the
Reichstag, 315

Ebert, Friedrich, son of above, 246 n.
Economic Party, the, 304, 323
Eden, Rt. Hon Anthony, visits Berlin
(February 1934), 454, 460
Elections* presidential (1925), 252-267,
276, 368, general (May 1928), 321,
323, general (September 1930), 347,
presidential (1932), 368-371, Prussian
general (April 1932), 377, 378, general
(July 1932), vii, 405-406; general
(November 1932), 415, general (March
1933), 438-439

Elizabeth of Prussia, Queen, 4
Enablmg Act (1933), 408, 430, 431, 432,
445-446, 448
Enver Pasha, 227

Epernay, Allied resistance at (July

1918) , 156

Equahty of armaments See Disarma-
ments question, the
Erhardt, 290 n,

Erhardt’s Brigade, 298
Ernst, Karl, 463

Erzberger, Matthias, and the dismissal
of Falkenhayn, 68; proposes resolution
(October 16, 1916) m favour of the
Supreme Command, 90, and the dis-
missal of Bethmann HoUweg from
the Chancellorship, 101, 103, 105,
108; and the appomtment of Michaehs
to the Chancellorship, 107, 108; and
the German Peace Resolution, 111,
112, 113; his suggested “ German
solution ” of the Polish question,
126, 129; his mclusion in the Max
Cabmet (October 1918), 164; heads
Armistice Commission, 188-189, 206,
209, 240; Hmdenburg’s telegram to
(November 10, 1918), 209, 218, his
mclusion m the Bauer Cabmet (June

1919) , 218; supports signature of

482

INDEX

Erzberger, Matthias — continued
Peace Treaty, 218-219, 251; assassina-
tion of, 189 ?i , 239, 248, 334
Estonia, German occupation of, 132,
German measures for government of,
135

Ex-officers, Association of, 244-245
Expropriation of Imperial properties,
proposed, 306-307
Ewart, General, 66

Ealkenhausen, Col.-General von, 114
Ealkenhausen, Hans von, 462
Falkenhayn, Lieut. -Gen. Erich von,
origin and personal charm, but un-
equal to the supreme responsibility,
35; his appomtment as Chief of the
General Stafi, 34-35, 49; his relations
with Wilhelm II as the Chief of the
General Staff, 34, 49, 52, 53, 54, 57,
61, 64, 68, 69-71, 141; his plan for the
transfer of troops, 36, abandons
Schlieffen Plan m the West, 36, his
drive agamat the Channel ports (1914),
36, 37, 43, his proposed capture of
Antwerp, 36, his quarrel with Hmden-
burg, Ludendorff, and Hoffmann, 42,

47- 48, 49, 50-52, 53-54, 57-61, 62-65,
69-70, 71-73, 136; at conference with
Ludendorff at Mezi^res (October 1914),
42, refuses to dispatch army corps to
the Eastern Front (October 1914),
42-43; his proposed capture of Armen-
tieres, 43; his attempted capture of
Ypres, 43, 45, 46-47; and the appomt-
ment of Hindenburg as Commander-
m-Chief in the East, 43; his invidious
comparison with Hmdenburg, 45, 46-
47, 62, on Great Bntam as “our most
dangerous enemy”, 46; and the adop-
tion of unrestricted U-boat warfare,
46, 89; his disbelief m the possibihty
of decidmg the war m the East, 47-48,
54, 62, his pohcy of “limited offen-
sives”, 48, 61, 66; his disbelief m the
possibihty of a German victory, 48;
and the sending of divisions to sup-
port Hotzendorf’s Gahcian campaign,

48- 49; and the appointment of Luden-
dorff as Chief of Staff to the Sijd-
armee^ 49-50, 51-52; and the sending of
new corps to support Hmdenburg’s
East Prussian offensive (1915), 48, 52;
his dismissal urged by Bethmann
HoUweg, 48, 52, 53, 69, his dismissal
demanded by Hmdenburg, Luden-
dorff and Hoffmann (January 1915),

Falkenhayn, Lieut. -Gen . — continued
61-52; surrenders Prussian Mmistry of
War, 52; Tirpitz’ plan to secure his
dismissal, 53, defeats French offensive
m Champagne (Feb.-March 1915), 54,
and the “break-through” at Gorhce,
54-55, 56, 57, 293, and Hmdenburg’s
proposed Kovno offensive (June-July
1916), 56-58; at conference at Im-
perial GH Q., Posen (July 1, 1915),
57-58, and the “break-through” on the
Narev, 67-58, 60, 61; rejects Hmden-
burg’s proposed offensive beyond
Kovno and Vilna (August 1915), 60-
61, 63, rejects Conrad von Hotzen-
doif’s proposed Italian campaign
(1916), 65, his withdrawal of divisions
from the Eastern Front (Autumn
1915), 62-64, and the offensive agamst
Serbia (1915), 62, 63; and the French
offensive in Champagne (Autumn
1915), 62, 63, rejects Hmdenburg’s
proposed Russian offensive (1916), 65,

66, and the attack on Verdun, 65-66,

67, opposes Hmdenburg’s appomt-
ment as generalissimo on the Eastern
Front, 68; postpones proclamation of
Pohsh Kingdom, 86, 87, decides to
withdraw further troops from East
(August 1916), 69-70, miscalculates
the entry of Rumama into the war,
70-71; his dismissal as Chief of the
General Staff, 42, 62, 68-69, 70-73,
77; his conduct, as army commander,
of the Rumanian campaign (1916),
35, 82-83; on list of “war-crimmals”,
231

Falkland Islands, battle of, 88
FayoUe, General, 148
Fehrenbach, 248
Feldmann, Lieut. -Col. von, 269
Ferdmand, of Bulgaria, Tsar, 170
Fmance Act (1932), 384
Financial and economic reforms (1929-
1931), the, 336-337, 342, 343, 344-345,
346, 347, 348, 349, 351, 354, 358
Finland, sendmg of German expedi-
tionary forces to, 135
Flanders, British drive m (1917), 97, 99;
German proposals for government of,
114, 155

Foch, Marshal, 149, 156, 186, 206, 214,
227, 228, 264-265

Fourteen Pomts, Wilson’s, 161, 165, 168,
172, 215

Francois, General von, 9-11, 12, 22, 23,
24, 26, 29, 245

INDEX

483

Frankfurter Zeitung, suppression of Mar-
burg speech in the, 459
Franz Josef, Emperor, 68, 102, 124, 125,
184

Frederick Charles, of Hesse, Prince, 184
Frederick William III, of Prussia, 286
Free Corps, the, 215, 288-289, 290, 298,
339

French Ambassador, 383, 387, 395
Frick, Wilhelm, 409, 413, 441, 446
Fulfilment, Policy of, 248, 249, 258, 274,
276, 281, 318, 326, 349, 371
Furstenberg, meetmg of Schleicher and
Hitler at, 406

Galicia, proposed measures of Central
Powers regarding, 125, 126
Galician campaign, Conrad von Hotzen-
dorf’s, 48-49, Falkenhayn’s, 54, 56
Gallwitz, General, 57, 60, 174
Gera, assembly of Nazi chiefs at, 458-459
German People’s Party, the, 253, 257,
258, 322, 406

Germama, the, Papen’s direction of, 397;

suppression of Marburg speech in, 459
Gerothwohl, Maurice, 244
Gessler, Otto, origin, abilities, and early
career, 252-253; appomted Minister of
Defence, 290, as Mmister of Defence,
273, 279, 296; his proposed candida-
ture for the presidential election of
1925, 252-254; supports Stresemann’s
negotiation of the Locarno treaties,
281, his opposition to Stresemann on
the disarmament question, 279, and
Seeckt’s resignation from active com-
mand of Reichswehr, 299; concurs in
choice of Heye as General Command-
ing the Beic^wehr, 300, his dismissal
from the Ministry of Defence, 299,
300-301, 319

Gestapo (German Secret Pobce), the,
455, 464, 465, 468
Gibson, Hugh, 388, 393, 394
Gilbert, Parker, 319-320, 321, 324, 336
Gneisenau, 8, 214, 282, 286, 350
Goebbels, Josef, diary, 366, 387, news-
paper articles, 437, attacks Hmden-
burg m the Angriff^ 333; records his
plans for eventual dismissal of Grbner,
Pruning and Schleicher, 365, expelled
from the Beichstag, 368, brands Hm-
denburg durmg election campaign
(1932), 368, threatens a more radical
Revolution to follow Hindenburg’s
death, 461; his scathing references to
the monarchist organizations, 462;

Goebbels, Josef — continued

his casmstry and radical opportunism,
453, 456, on the Lausanne Agreement,
401; Hitler and Nazi chiefs have
luncheon with (August 13, 1932), 409,
enters Hitler Cabinet (January 1933),
435, exploits Hitler - Hmdenburg
association at Potsdam ceremony
(March 21, 1933), 444; rivalry with
Goring, 452, attacks of Papen on, 452,
456, 467, 458, 465; advocates Papen’s
arrest (after Marburg speech), 459,
his invective m Angnjf authors

of Marburg speech, 459; attempts to
suppress Marburg speech, 469; at
Hamburg race-meetmg (June 24,
1933), 459-460

Goring, General, at luncheon of Nazi
chiefs at Goebbels’ house (August 13,

1932) , 409, at Reichstag openmg
session (September 9, 1932), 411, 412,
413, 414; his inclusion in Hitler
Cabinet (January 1933), 432, 435,
on Hmdenburg and the inauguration
of the Third Reich, 434; and the
Brown Terror (Jan.-Feb. 1933), 437;
estabhshes himself m the Government
of Prussia, 438, 452, at Leipzig trial,
439; at Potsdam ceremony (March 21,

1933) , 443; at Reichstag session
(March 23, 1933), 446, 447, rivalry
with Goebbels, 452, and the proposed
reduction of the S.A , 455, 460; his
opposition to Rohm, 465; his rumoured
exclusion from Schleicher’s “Shadow
Cabmet” (June 1934), 455; and the
events of June 30, 1934, 460, 462,
468, and the arrest of Papen (June
30, 1934), 462, 465

Gorizia, Italian capture of, 67

Gorhce, German “break-through” at,
56-56, 67, 61, 266, 293

Gothem, 236, 236, 237-239

Grandi, Dmo, 382

Greece, her attitude to war, 46, 47

Groner, Wilhelm, ongm, abilities and
early career, 180-182, 195, 252, lack
of seniority prevents his coming into
decisive power, 35, rivalry with Luden-
dorff, 180; appomted CMef of Trans-
port, 180, 296, opposes attack on
Liege, 180, his plan for the disposition
of troops on Western Front, 181; his
proposed transfer of troops, 36; pro-
moted General, 181, placed in charge
of the Army Food Supply Depart-
ment, 181, appointed head of War

484

INDEX

Grdner, WiUielm — continued
Office, 181; as the official responsible
for the intensification of production,
181-182, placed m command of a
division on the Western Pront, 182;
of a corps on the Western Pront, 182;
as head of the German-Ukrainian
trading organization, 134, 182, 208,
293; his appointment as Pirat
Quartermaster-General, 179, 182, 183,
297; and the retreat to the Antwerp-
Meuse line (Oct.-Nov. 1918), 185-186;
and the proposal of an Armistice, 186,
188; and the Alhed conditions for an
Armistice, 206, 208, 216, and the
Emperor’s plan for restoring order in
Germany (November 8, 1918), 190-
192; and the abdication of the
Emperor, 185, 186-188, 189-192, 193,
194, 195-198, 199,201-202, 203, 204 ti.,
205; informs Emperor of the necessity
of his abdication, 195-197, 198, 199;
his interview with Hmdenburg (Nov-
ember 10, 1918), 208-209, 210, 262,
297; charge of responsibility for the
Emperor’s abdication levelled against,
179, 195, 196, 203, 205, 211, 241, 301,
386; his telephone conversation with
Ebert (November 9, 1918), 206-208,
210; brings Western armies home,
209; and the re-kmdling of the Hin-
denburg Legend (durmg November
1918), 210, 221; goes to the rescue of
Ebert, imprisoned in the Chancellery,
297; on the army resolution of the
Congress of Workmen’s and Soldiers’
Councils (December 16, 1918), 212,
213; and Hindenburg’s proposed
ofiensive m East Prussia, 214; and
Noske’s handling of the Reichswehr
on the occasion of the second Spar-
tacist rismg, 216; and proposed re-
sistance to Peace conditions, 216, 217,
220; charge of responsibility for the
acceptance of the Peace conditions
levelled against, 221, 301; and Ehn-
denburg’s farewell proclamation to
the army, 221; turns civilian after the
signature of peace, 297; his early co-
operation with the Weimar Repubhc,
289; at Court of Honour (1922), 221,
301, 357; takes office as Minister of
Railways, 290, and the reorganization
of the Reichswehr, 290, 292, 296; his
relations with Sclileioher, 296, 297,
301, 327, 376, 385; his appomtment as
Minister of Defence, 301-302, 303,

Groner, Wilhelm — continued
319, his mclusion in Muller Cabinet
(May 1928), 323; as actmg Chancellor,
327; and the appomtment of Rrumng
as Chancellor, 328, 337-338, 340, 341;
his support canvassed for proposed
economic and financial reforms (1929-
1930), 336; combines Home Office with
the Ministry of Defence, 358; his
loyalty to Erunmg as Chancellor, 358,
at conference between Brumng and
Hitler (January 7, 1932), 361; defends
Brumng before Hmdenburg, 364-365,
determmation of Nazis to secure his
dismissal, 365, 366; defends Hmden-
burg during election campaign (1932),
368; his ill-health, 368, 376, 384, and
the suppression of Hitler’s Storm
Troops, 374, 375, and proposed admis-
sion of Storm Troops mto Reichswehr,
374-375, 405, and proposed suppres-
sion of ReichsbanneTj 376-377, 384,
his resignation of the Mmistry of
Defence, 375, 384-385, 386, 416, 419,
message of ex-Kaiser on his resigna-
tion of the Mmistry of Defence, 384
Gross- Schwoilper, estate of, 265
Grunau, 163

Grimert, General von, 11, 12
Grzesmski, 210, 336, 403
Gumbmnen, battle of, 11, 12, 19
Gimdell, General von, 188, 189

Haase, 168, 207

Haef ten. Colonel von. 111, 114, 140, 162,
153, 164, 167, 169, 192
Hague Conference, 285-286, 326-327,
332

Hahn, Kurt, 164

Haig, Field-Marshal Earl, 97, 99, 148,
150

Hamburg, naval mutiny at, 189
Hammers tern. Colonel von, 290 ti , 296,
299, 300, 302 w., 374, 384, 428, 443
Hangar d, fight mg at (March- April
1918), 149

Hanover, Hindenburg’s residence at,
5-6, 225-227, 249-250, 262, 304, 310,
mounts Red Flag, 189, 226
Hardenberg, 286
Hartlepool, bombardment of, 88
Hartmann, Cardmal, 114
Harzburg Opposition, 349-350, 360
Hatzfeldt, Prince, 101, 102
Hausser, League of Herr, 245
Heines, 453, 461, 462
Held, 266

INDEX 485

HelSench, 233, 234-235, 238 n , 239
Hell, Lt -Colonel, 23
Helldorf, Count, 381, 401
HeUpach, 255
Hentsch, Lt -Colonel, 32
Herbesthal, mutiny at, 339, 357
HerrenUub, Berlin, the, 395, 397, 423
Hernot, Edouard, 275, 387, 393, 401
Hertlmg, Count, Emperor refuses to
consider his succession to Bethmann
HoUweg as Chancellor, 107, his ap-
pomtment as Chancellor, 122, 138; as
Chancellor, 138, 272, and the negotia-
tions for an Armistice with Kussia
(November 1917), 122, opposes con-
clusion of an annexationist peace with
Russia, 125, and proposed “German
solution” of Polish question, 126; and
General Staff’s proposed solution of
Pohsh question, 126, 131, 138; sup-
ports proposed measures of General
Staff regardmg Courland and Lithu-
ania, 128, and the claim of the
Supreme Command to a share in final
peace negotiations, 139-140, and pro-
posed German peace offensive (June
1918), 151-152, 163, 154-155, and the
Reichstag speech of Kuhlmann (June
24, 1918), 154-155; informs Reichstag
“there is no ground for doubtmg our
victory”, 159; repeats the above asser-
tion to party leaders, 159, 163; at
Crown Council meetmg at Spa
(August 14, 1918), 158; resigns Chan-
cellorship, 161
Hess, 435, 451
Heutsz, General van, 204 n.
Heydebrand, 168
Heydebreck, Hans Peter von, 462
Heye, Colonel, 195, 199, 300
Hilferdmg, 332

Hiller, Restaurant, Unter den Linden,
108

Himmler, 455, 460, 468
Bxndenhurg, the, 79, 227
Hmdenburg, Prau von, 16, 79, 149, 225-
226, 227, 241, 249, 441
Hindenburg, Colonel Oskar von, interest
of his father in his mihtary career,
5-6, at his father’s homecoming to
Hanover (July 1919), 225; his mar-
riage to the niece of Countess von
Crayenberg, 226; and the election of
his father to the presidency (1925),
266; his influence over his father, 278,
324, 367, his ambitious mtrigues, 60,
313; his friendship with Schleicher,

Hindenburg, Colonel Oskar von — con-
tinued

296, 298-299, 303, 427, as his father’s
personal adjutant, 298-299, 313; and
the formation of the Dritte Garde
group, 299, and the formation of the
Palace Camarilla^ 299, 324; and the
dismissal of Seeckt from the active
command of the Reichswehr, 299;
and the appointment of Schleicher as
Minister of Defence, 302, and the
pubhc presentation of the Neudeck
estate to father, 313, 314, 361, his
alhance with the East Prussian land-
owners, 314, 364; and Hugenberg’s
agitation for increase of Hmden-
burg’s presidential powers, 324; and
Schleicher’s proposed use of Article
48 of Constitution, 330, and the
appointment of Bruning as Chan-
cellor, 341, his acquisition of estate
adjoinmg Neudeck, 361, 448, and
Brumng’s scheme for the expropria-
tion of bankrupt estates, 365, 367;
and Bruning’s scheme for the restora-
tion of the monarchy, 367; and the
dismissal of Brunmg from the Chan-
cellorship, 361, 372, 377, and the
appointment of Papen as Chancellor
(May 1932), vii; his jomt authorship
with Papen of plan to secure dissolu-
tion of all hostile bodies (December

1932) , 420, 427; his affection for
Papen, 419, 420; his opposition to
Papen’s dismissal from Chancellor-
ship (December 1932), 419, 420;
assures Schleicher of his father’s
wiUmgness to grant him full power
(January 1933), 427; and the dis-
missal of Schleicher from the Chan-
ceUorahip, 423, 427, and the negotia-
tions of Papen with Hitler (January

1933) , 423, 427; and the appointment
of Hitler as Chancellor (January 1933),
433, rumoured threat of Schleicher to
secure his confinement in the fortress
of Lotzeu, and the publication of his
father’s will, 469

Hindenburg, Major Paul von, viii, 4

Hmdenburg, Paul von Beneckendorff
und von, Eield-Marshal, birth and
origin, 3-4, character and personahty,
IX, X, 17, 27, 58, 59-60, 95, 166, 179,
184, 220, 272, 273, 282, 312; personal
appearance, 14, 30; his legend, ix-x, 7,
16, 29-31, 33, 39, 44, 46, 60, 78-80, 82,
149, 158, 169, 176-177, 210, 221, 227,

486

INDEX

Hindenburg, Paul von Beneckendorfi
und von — continued
257, 292, 371-372, 373, 434, 437, com-
missioned a second-lieutenant m
Tlurd Regiment of Foot Guards, 4;
and the Seven Weeks’ War, 4,
decorated with Order of Red Eagle,
4, and the Franco-Prussian War, 4;
awarded Iron Cross, 4, represents his
regiment at Emperor’s proclamation
at Versailles, 4, is engaged in “military
peace work”, 4-6, 14, appomted to
command of Fourth Army Corps, 6,
his name dismissed as possible suc-
cessor to SchheSen as Chief of the
General Staff, 5, and the Imperial
manoeuvres (1908), 6; retires from
army, 5; his retirement at Hanover
(1911-1914), 5-6; promoted Colonel-
General, 6; his appomtment to com-
mand of Eighth Army, 6, 13-14, 15,
16; his first meetmg with Ludendorff,
16-17, 18; his relationship with Luden-
dorff, 17-18, 50, 61, 73, 98, 143, 166,
172, 173, 177-179, 211; and the battle
of Tannenberg, 18-19, 21, 22, 23-24,
26-27, and the first battle of the
Masurian Lakes, 25, 26, receives order
JPour le Mdrite, 27; possible conse-
quences of his appomtment, with
Ludendorff and Hoffmann, to the
Supreme Command m 1914, 35, 36,
appointed to command of Eighth and
Ninth Armies, 37, his Pohsh (Silesian)
campaign (Sept -Oct 1914), 37-41, 44;
his East Prussian campaign (Nov.-
Dee. 1914), 41-42, 43-44; appointed
Commander-m-Chief m the East, 43;
on the battle of Lodz, 43; promoted
Field -Marshal, 44; public compari-
son between his and Falkenhayn’s
achievements, 45, 46, 47; and the
quarrel between Falkenhayn and his
own Eastern Command, 47-48, 49, 50,
51-52, 58, 59-60, 61, 62-66, 77-78, 136,
his proposed Eastern solution for wm-
nmg the war, 47-48, 50-51, 62, 65, SI,
his proposal of a new East Prussian
offensive (January 1915), 47, 48, 49,
50, 61-62, and the sendmg of German
troops to support Conrad von Hotzen-
dorf’s proposed Galician offensive,
48-49, 62; and Ludendorff’s appomt-
ment as Chief of Staff to the new
JSlldaTmee, 50, 51; demands Falken-
hayn’s dismissal from his position as
Chief of the General Staff, 52; and the

Hindenburg, Paul von Beneckendorff
und von — continued
second battle of the Masurian Lakes,
63, 55; his appomtment as Dictator
advocated by Tirpitz, 63; and the
“break-through” at Gorlice, 56, his
proposed Kovno offensive (June 1915),
56-57, 61; his proposed offensive be-
yond K-Ovno and Vdna (August 1915),
60; on 50th anniversary of entry into
the army, 61-62; resists Falkenhayn’s
withdrawal of forces from Eastern
Front (Sept -Oct. 1916), 62-65, his
plan for a new offensive against
Russia (for 1916), 65, and the Russian
offensive (March 1916), 66-67, ap-
pomted to the command of whole
Eastern Front, 67-68, and the Russian
offensive (August 1916), 69, and Fal-
kenhayn’s proposed withdrawal of
further forces from Eastern Front
(August 1916), 69-70, and Luden-
dorff’s threatened resignation, 70, his
appomtment as Chief of the General
Staff, 71-73; as Chief of the General
Staff, 77-78, 83, 84-85, 90, 95, 109-110,
111, 115-116, 131, 136, 137, 138-139,
140, 143, 158, 159, 176-177, erection
of wooden colossi in his image, 79-80,
tours Western Front, 80-81, 94; and
the meetmg of the German war-
couned at Cambrai, 81, 94, abandons
Eastern solution of winning the war,
81; and the Rumanian campaign
(1916), 82, 83, 89, 90; and the unifica-
tion of command of Central Powers,
82; and the mvitation to the Umted
States to mediate, 82, 83, 92, and the
adoption of unrestricted U-boat war-
fare, 82, 83, 88, 89-92, 93; his defence
of the adoption of unrestricted U-boat
warfare, 93, 239; and the German
shortage of munitions, 81-82, 83, and
the liqmdation of the position at
Verdun, 81, 82, attacked by a kmd of
low fever, 85, 95; and the Polish
question, 85-87, 93, 117, 125, 126-127,
128, 129, 131, 135, 138; and the pro-
clamation of the Kingdom of Poland,
86, 87, 93, 117, 125; hia failure to con-
clude peace with Russia, 87-88, 93,
and the German peace offer (Decem-
ber 1916), 90-91, at meetmg of
Imperial Council at Pleas (January 9,
1917), 91, 92; and the French capture
of Douaumont, 91, 94; and the con-
struction of the Hindenburg Lme, 94,

INDEX

487

Hmdenburg, Paul von Beneckendorff
und von — continued
95, 117, at Imperial G.H.Q , Kreuz-
nach, 95-96, 97-98, 99; celebrates his
70 th birthday, 96, his calmness during
the British assault on Hmdenburg
Line, 97-98, and the renewed British
offensive (June 1916), 99, and hia pro-
posed appomtment as Chancellor,
101; at conference at Kreuznach to
decide on Bethmann HoUweg’s suc-
cessor as Chancellor, 101, 102, and the
rejection of Hatzfeldt as possible
successor to Bethmann HoUweg in
Chancellorship, 101, 102, and the pro-
posed appomtment of Bulow as
Chancellor, 101-102, 103; and the dis-
missal of Bethmann HoUweg from the
ChanceUorship, 105, 106, 107, and the
German Peace Resolution (July 1917),
106, 110-111, 112, 125, proposes his
resignation as Chief of the General
Staff, 106, 107, and Michaehs as
ChanceUor, 107, 108-109, offers Em-
bassy at Constantmople to Bethmann
HoUweg, 107 71., bis hope for the con-
clusion of an annexationist peace,
110; and the reply to the Papal Peace
Note, 112-113, 114-115, and the ques-
tion of Belgian independence, 113,
114-115, 137, 155, hia proposed

mihtary occupation of Lidge, 115, 155;
and the passage of Lenm through
Germany, 117, 119; and the possible
negotiation of a separate peace by
Austria (1917), 123-124; and proposed
transfer of troops from Western to
Eastern Eront, 124, 134, 135, 148; and
the negotiation of the Treaty of Brest -
Litovak, 124-128, 129, 131, 132, 133,
136, 138, 139, 151, his proposed
measures regardmg Courland and
Lithuania, 125, 127, 128; and Luden-
dorff’s quarrel with Hoffmann, 131,
177; and the resumption of hostilities
with Russia, 132, and the German-
Ukramian tradmg organization, 134;
and the German Offensive of 1918,
124, 133, 137, 143, 144-145, 151-152;
and proposed German peace offensive
(at the begmning of 1918), 137, 138-
142; and the appomtment of Hertlmg
as ChanceUor, 122, 138; his demand
for a share in final peace negotiations,
139, and the dismissal of Valentmi
from his position as Chief of the
Emperor’s Civil Cabmet, 140-141;

Hmdenburg, Paul von Beneckendorff
und von — continued
dommates the internal government of
country, 142, 143, takes up residence
at Imperial G.H Q , Spa, 143, un-
damaged m railway accident, 144, his
meetmg with Mustapha Kemal Pasha,
144-145, and the offensive against
Amiens (March-April 1918), 146, 147,
148, 149, awarded Grand Cross of the
Iron Cross with Golden Rays, 149, and
the second German offensive of 1918
(AprU-May), 149, and the attack along
the Chemm des Dames (May-June
1918), 150, 151; and proposed German
peace offensive (June 1918), 151, 152,
153, 154, 155, Ins breach with Kuhl-
mann, 152, his proposed mihtary
occupation of Belgium, 155, his assur-
ance of victory, 156-158, 159-160, 162;
and Ludendorff’s proposed resigna-
tion as Eirst Quartermaster- General,
157, and the events of August 8, 1918,
157, at Crown Council meetmg at Spa
(August 14, 1918), 158, 161; and the
proposal of an Armistice, 162, 163-
164, 165-167, 168-169, 170, 176, and
the German retreat (October 1918),
169-170; and the Armistice negotia-
tions, 170-171, 172, 174-176, 178, 188;
and the proposal of a levie. en masse,
172, 173; and Ludendorff’s resignation
as Eirst Quartermaster-General, 176-
177, 178, his retention m the Supreme
Command, 176-177, 178, 179, 206-
207, 208-209, 210, and the formation
of Bavarian army of defence, 179, and
Emperor’s abdication, 183, 185, 186,
188, 189-190, 191, 192-195, 200, 201,
201-202, 203-204, 220, 266-257; his
sense of loyalty to the Emperor, 184;
persuades Erzbergerto head Armistice
Commission, 188-189; and Emperor’s
plans to restore order in Germany,
190-192, at meetmg of Imperial war-
council at Spa (November 9, 1918),
195, 197-198, 199, 200, 202, 205, 211,
250, and the Emperor’s flight to
HoUand, 201-202, 203-205, 240-243;
his acceptance of the AUied Armistice
conditions, 209, at G.H.Q , Wilhelma-
hohe, 209-211; his association with
Groner, 211, 302; brings Western
armies home, 208, 211, 214; and the
army resolution of the Congress of
Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Councils,
212-213; his plan for an offensive in

488 INDEX

Hindenburg, Paul von Beneckendorjff
uud von — ooTitiTiuBd
the East (February 1919), 214-215;
and the acceptance of the Allied Peace
conditions, 216, 217-218, 219-220,221;
his farewell proclamation to the army
(June 1919), 221-222; his retirement
in Hanover (1919-1925), 226-226,
243-244, 246, 249-250, 262, 304, 310;
his collection of pictures of the
Madonna and Child, 244; and pro-
posed trial of ex-Kaiser, 227-228, 232,
240; produces his Memoirs, 228; his
“farewell message” in Memoirs, 229-
230; his hope for a future restoration
of the monarchy, 230, 243, 356, 356,
367, 433^, 476; on list of “war-
criminals , 231; and his proposed trial
as a “war-crimmal” on the general
behalf, 232, his appearance before the
Committee of Enquiry (November
1919), 233-240; and the “stab-m-the-
back” theory, 167, 233, 234-235, 237,
238, 239, 437-438; and the question of
war-guilt, 237, 240-241, 278, 317-318;
his correspoudence with the ex-

Kaiser on his responsibility for the
flight to Holland, 240-243; and his
wife’s illness and death, 241; and the
K-onigsberg demonstration (June
1922), 244, 245; at ceremony on tenth
anniversary of Tannenberg (1924),
246; and the League of Herr Hausser,
246-246; and the murder of Rathenau,
249-250; and Ludendorfi’s candidature
for the presidential election (1925),
254-265; his election as president
(1925), 247, 256-257, 368; as president
of the Republic, 270-271, 272-273,
304, 307-308, 309, 310, 330, 331, 371-
372, 399-400; and the oath to the
Constitution, 268, 272, 333, 436; and
Marshal Foch, 227-22S, 264-265; his
dislike of the microphone, 265, recog-
nizes Black- Gold -Red oi Retchsbanner,
268; con firm s Meissner in oflSce of
Secretary of State, 269-271; his rela-
tionship with Meissner, 268, 269-270,
278-279, 281, 283, 286, 295; inaugura-
tion of his presidency, 271-272, his
support of Stresemann’s foreign
pohcy, 274, 277-279, 281, 283-284,
286, 296, 325; at Cologne celebrations
on the evacuation of the Rhmeland,
282; and the reorganization of the
Reichswehr, 205, 216, 274, 289, 293;
becomes Commander-m-Chief of the

Hmdenburg, Paul von Beneckendorff
und von — continued
Reichswehr, 292, 296; his domination
by the Palace Gamarillay 278, 299; and
the dismissal of Seeckt from the active
command of the Reichswehr, 299-300;
and Groner’s appointment as Mmister
of Defence, 301-302; fails to grasp the
difficulties of obtainmg a parlia-
mentary majority, 304; and Luther’s
new taxation and revaluation pro-
gramme, 304-305; and the Hmden-
burg Loans, 305, and the Cabinet
crisis (Christmas 1925), 305-306, and
the proposed expropriation of the
Imperial properties, 306-307, and the
proposal to fly the Imperial colours on
diplomatic buildmgs, 308, and the
formation of the Marx Government,

309- 310, and the proposed settlement
of ex-Service men in East Prussia,

310- 311, 315; public presentation of
Neudeck to, 311-315, 316; celebrates
80th birthday, 315, and the “Hinden-
hurg Fund”, 315; unveihng of his bust
m Reichstag, 314-315; at dedication of
Tannenberg Memorial (1927), 316,
his meetmg with Ludendorff at Tan-
nenberg ceremony (1927), 317; his
public repudiation of German war-
guilt, 317-318; and the biU to increase
salaries of Civil Servants, 319, and the
general election (May 1928), 322, 323;
agitation to grant dictatorial powers
to, 323-324, 337; and the acceptance
of the Young Plan, 325, 328, his pro-
posed use of Article 48 of Constitution,
329; and the ratification of the Young
Plan, 332-335, 336, 343-344; his
negotiations for a coalition govern-
ment between the Nationalist Party
and the Centre (December 1929), 337;
and the appomtment of Brunmg as
ChanceUor, 341, 342, 343, 345, 346;
his first mterview with Brunmg, 342-
343; his relations with Brunmg, 342-
343, 347, 349, 364, 367-368, 372, 376,
382-383, 391; and the adoption of
financial reforms, 344, 345; his pro-
posals regardmg Osthilfe fund, 344;
and the use of Article 48 of the Con-
stitution, 347, at Potsdam (October
1931), 352; Bruning’s intention to
secure his appointment as Eeiclisver-
weser for hfe, 354; and Brunmg ’s plans
for the restoration of the monarchy,
365-356, 367, bis interview with

INDEX 489

Hindenburg, Paul von Beneckendorfi
und von — continued
Pruning (November 11, 1931), 356-
358, bis re-election as president, 351-
354, 355, 359, 360-361, 363-364;
-Bruning combination, 359, his first
meetmg with Hitler, 359-360, 407,
bis proposed dismissal of Brunmg
from tbe Cbancellorsbip, 364-365, bis
proposed dismissal of Scbleicber from
office, 366; on bis son Oskar’s pobtical
activities, 367, bis proposal for Brun-
ing’s resignation (April 1932), 372-
373, and the suppression of Hitler’s
Storm Troops (April 1932), 374, 376;
and Brunmg’s proposed expropriation
measure for tbe bankrupt estates in
East Prussia, 376, 377, and Groner’s
dismissal from tbe Mmistry of
Defence, 385, and tbe dismissal of
Bruning from tbe Cbancellorsbip, 373,
375, 376, 377-378, 384, 389-393, 394-
395; and tbe appointment of Papen as
Chancellor (June 1932), vu, 395, 399,
400; his relationship with Papen, 267-
268, 380-381, 397-398, 400, 407, 419,
420, 422, 426, 466, and tbe selection of
tbe Papen Cabinet (May~June 1932),
398; and tbe general election (July
1932), vu-viu; and tbe Rape of Prussia,
402, 403; becomes convmced of tbe
need for a presidial government, 404,
409; refuses to appoint Hitler Chan-
cellor (August 1932), 406-407, 410; bis
interview with Hitler (August 13,
1932), 407, 409-410, signs draft decree
for Reichstag dissolution (September
1932), 412; bis interview with Hitler
(November 19, 1932), 417, bis letters
to Hitler replymg to his demands re-
gardmg tbe Cbancellorsbip (Novem-
ber 1932), 418; and Papen’s dismissal
from tbe Cbancellorsbip, 419-420, 422,
and Schleicher’s appointment as
Chancellor, 422, and Schleicher’s dis-
missal from tbe Cbancellorsbip, 423,
426, 429, and BUtler’s appointment as
Chancellor (January 1933), 205, 423,
426, 429-430, 432-434, 437, 449; bis
relations with Hitler, 437, 438, 443;
bis name reviled, 442, 448; and tbe
Reichstag Eire Trial, 442, at dedicatory
service at Potsdam (March 21, 1933),
443; and tbe Enabling BiU, 446-446,
447-448; his frequent retirements to
Neudeok, 448-449; bis incomplete
knowledge of Hitler’s activities as

Hmdenburg, Paul von Beneckendorfi
imd von — continued
Chancellor, 448-449, 474-475, attends
race-meetmgs, 450, at Tannenberg
ceremony (August 1933), 450, and
Germany’s withdrawal from tbe Dis-
armament Conference and League of
Nations, 450, and Papen’s Marburg
speech, 456-457, 460, 461, 466, 474,
and tbe events of June 30, 1934, 464-
465, 474, death of, 466-467, 468;
funeral of, 469; bis will, 230, 469-476

'‘Hmdenburg Fund”, 316

Hindenburg Lme, its construction, 94-

96, 96, British attack on (April 1917),

97, 98, Germans withdraw to (Septem-
ber 1918), 160

“Hmdenburg Loans”, 304-306

Hmtze, Admiral von, his visit to German
Imperial G.H.Q. at Avesnes, 156, at
Crown Council meetmg at Spa
(August 14, 1918), 158-159, at Im-
perial conference at Spa (September
29, 1918), 163; and tbe abdication of
tbe Emperor, 163, 182, 189-190, 192-
193, 194, 195, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202,
204 71., 242 n , bis visit to Hmdenburg
(November 8, 1918), 192-193, 194,
204 71.; bis probable responsibibty for
tbe Emperor’s flight, 204 71.-206 n.\
and tbe preparation of tbe Protocol
covermg tbe events at Spa on Novem-
ber 9, 1918, 242 n.

Hitler, Adolf, origm and pobtical status,
368, 407, and the “stab-in-tbe-back”
theory, 229, 235, and tbe revolt in
Munich (1923), 244, 247; ends mditary
baison with Soviet Union, 284; his
albance with Hugenberg, 326, 331,
349-360; and tbe general election
(September 1930), 347-348; at meet-
mg with Hugenberg at Harzburg
(October 11, 1931), 349, bis emulation
of Mussohni’s pobtical tactics, 350,
409, 451; bis first meeting with Hm-
denburg, 359-360; and Hmdenburg’s
proposed re-election as president, 360,
361-362, 363; bis conference with
Brunmg (January 7, 10, 1932), 361-
362, and tbe presidential election
(1932), 368, 369, 370, 371; and tbe
Red Peril, 371; and the suppression of
tbe Storm Troops, 374; and proposed
incorporation of the Storm Troops
into Reicbswehr, 376 n.\ his pro-
gramme for tbe abobtion of mterest,
377; his warnmg that “heads shall

490

IKDEX

Hitler, Adolf — continued
roll”, 378, 425, 437, and the appoint-
ment of Papen as Chancellor, 381, hia
attitude to the Papen Government,
399; and the delay m the remstate-
ment of his Storm Troops, 400; and
the omission of Schleicher from Nazi
attacks on Papen Government, 405;
his meetmg with Schleicher at the
Furstenberg barracks, 406, 407, his
interview with Papen (August 13,
1932), 408-409, 414, 425, demands
S.A. should he given “three clear
days”, 408, 425, his interview with
Hmdenburg (August 13, 1932), 407,
408, his suggestion to depose Hinden-
burg, 410; his negotiations with
Brunmg for a coahtion government,
41 1; and the Potempa affair, 414; and
the general election (November 1932),
414, 416, refuses to accept Vice-
ChanceUorship (November 1932), 416,
his mterview with Hindenburg (Nov-
ember 19, 1932), 417, his letter to
Hmdenburg demanding Chancellor-
ship and the latter’s “special con-
fidence”, 417-418; retires from Berhn
to Munich, 418, his appointment as
Chancellor (January 1933), 205, 426,
428, 430-431, 432-435, 436, attempt
upon his life foiled by Rohm, 425, and
the meetmg with Papen at Cologne
(January 8, 1933), 426, strips Strasser
of party offices, 428; and the control
of the Prussian pohce, 430, 431, and
the Enabling BiU, 430, 431, 432-433,
445-446, 447-448, his “gentleman’s
agreement” with Hmdenburg, 432,
433, 448, and the general election
(March 1933), 430, 432, 437-439, dis-
penses with Paper’s presence at inter-
view with Hmdenburg, 435, 441; at
Potsdam dedicatory service (March
21, 1933), 444-445; Ms speech at
Reichstag session in KroU Opera
House (March 23, 1933), 447, his
eviction of Nationahst Party from
government, 451; failure of his
attempts to seduce Reichswehr from
its allegiance to Hhndenhurg, 292,
his rearmament programme, 453; and
the Wmterhilfe scandals, 453; his pro-
posed reduction of the S.A,, 454, 460;
and Papen ’s Marburg speech, 460-
461; his meeting with Mussolini at
Venice (Jime 1934), 456; and the
events of June 30, 1933, 451, 452-466;

Hitler, Adolf — continued
and the murder of Rohm, 375 ?i., 462,
463; and Schleicher’s murder, 406,
and the preservation of Papen’a life,
462, and the death of Hmdenburg,
468; merges office of President with
Chancellorship, 468-469, receives oath
of allegiance from Reichswehr, 292,
469; and Hmdenhurg’s will, 230, 469-
470, 473, 474, 475; his mtroduction of
conscription, 475

HLH, combmation of, 37, 39, 43, 44,
53, 78, 131; their quarrel with Falken-
hayn, 42, 47-48, 49, 53-54, 55, 56, 57,
58-59, 60, 61, 62, 65, 69-70, 71, 72-73,
78, 136, their proposed Eastern solu-
tion for wmnmg the war, 47-48, 50-51,
62, 65

Hoffmann, General, no mention of name
m Hmdenhurg’s book of memoirs,
228, and the battle of Gumbmnen, 11,
12; and the battle of Tannenberg, 12-
13, 16-16, 19, 20, 21, 22-23, 26, 27, 28,
97; on the battle of Tannenberg, 18,
19, 20, 21, 28, 29, and the first battle
of the Masurian Lakes, 25-26, receives
Iron Cross, 28; and the Schheffen
Plan, 35-36, 56, 68, his plan for the
transfer of troops, 35-36; possible
consequences of his appomtment,
with Hmdenburg and Ludendorff, to
the Supreme Command m 1914, 35,
36; and Hindenburg’s Pohsh cam-
paign (Sept -Oct. 1914), 37, 39, 40-41,
44; and Hindenburg’s East Prussian
campaign (Nov -Dec. 1914), 41, 42,
43, 44, and the dismissal of Falken-
hayn, 51-52, 53-54, 58, 59, 60, 62, 64,
70, 72, 389; and Hindenburg’s East
Prussian offensive (1915), 52, 63-64,
on Conrad von Hotzendorf’s Gahcian
offensive (1915), 54, and the “break-
through” at Gorlice, 55, and Hmden-
burg’s proposed Kovno offensive
(June 1915), 56, 67, at Hmdenburg’s
G.H.Q., Brest-Litovak (July-August
1916), 69; and Ludendorff’s proposed
resignation (August 1916), 70, possible
consequences of his appomtment with
Hmdenburg and Ludendorff to the
Western Front in 1916, 78; as Chief of
Staff to Prmce Leopold of Bavaria,
78, 87, 100, 120, 12M22, 131, 135;
and Xfinin’s passage through Ger-
many, 119; and the negotiations for a
Russian Armistice, 122, 122 w.-123 n.;
and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 128-

INDEX

491

Hofimann, General — continued

130, 131, his breach with Ludendorff,
78, 130, 131, 177; Hmdenburg’s
failure to support on breach with
Ludendorff, 131, 177, 391; Luden-
dorS’s demand for hia dismissal from
his position as Chief of Staff in the
East, 131, on the setting up of the
German -Ukrainian tradmg organiza-
tion, 134, on Wilson’s Second Note,
172; and the crushmg of the first
Spartacist rismg, 213, his absence at
the dedication ceremonies of Tannen-
berg Memorial (1924, 1927), 245, 317;
opposes the military liaison with the
Soviet Union, 293, 295; death of (July
1927), 317. See HLH, combmation of
Hohenborn, Gen Wild von, 52
Hohenfinow, estate of Eethmann HoU-
weg at, 107 Ti
Hohenlohe, 271

Holland, German expectations regard-
ing her entry mto war, 89, 92;
Emperor’s flight to, 201, 202, 203-204,
240

Holstem, 298

Holtzendorf, Admnal von, 91-92, 100
Hoover Moratorium, 349, 354, 414
Horn, General von, 452
Hdtzendorf, Eield-Marshal Conrad von,
47, 48-49, 51, 54, 55, 66, 67
Hugenberg, Alfred, as leader of the
Nationalist Party, 321-322, 331, 349-
350, his relations with Hmdenburg,
323-324, 337, 341; his refusal to form
a coahtion government with the
Centre Party (January 1927), 308-
309, his tactics at the general election
(1928), 322, his alHance with the
Stahlhelm, 323, 326, 349, 368, his
agitation for the granting of dictatorial
powers to Hmdenburg, 323-324, 332,
attacks the Repubhcan system, 323,
326, his campaign agamst the accept-
ance of the Young Plan, 326, 334, his
aUiance with Hatler, 326, 331, 350,
360, 362; and the resignation of
Treviranus and Count Westarp, 322,
331; and proposed formation of a
Nationalist Government (December
1929), 332, 341; his campaign agamst
the ratification of the Young Plan,
332-336, 337, 344; and proposed forma-
tion of a coalition government with
the Centre Party (1929-30), 337, 341;
his refusal to support Hindenburg’s
re-election to presidency, 360, and

Hugenberg, Alfred — continued
the Harzburg Opposition, 350, 360,
at Harzburg meeting with Hitler
(October 11, 1931), 349-350, and
Brunmg’s proposed restoration of the
monarchy, 354; refuses to support
Prolongation Bill, 362, 363, demands
the resignation of Brunmg Cabmet,
362-363; puts Colonel Duster berg up
as candidate in the presidential elec-
tion (1932), 368, at session of Reich-
stag (September 12, 1932), 413, and
Schleicher’s proposed measure of ex-
propriation, 423, lus inclusion as
Minister of Agriculture in Hitler
Cabmet (January 1933), 430-431, 435;
his dismissal from the Ministry of
Agriculture, 451

“Hydra, the”, 53, 68, 71, 91, 110

Independent Sociahst Party, the, 168,
183, 189, 207, 211, 218, 233, 234
Influenza, epidemic of (October 1918),
173

Ironside, Gen Sir Edmund, 24
Italy, neutrabty of. Central Powers and
the, 46, 47, 48-49; and the Secret
Treaty of Loudon, 123; declares war
on Austria, 61, on Germany, 1\ n

Jager battalions mutmy, 194
Jarres, Doctor, 254, 255, 257, 258, 259,
276

Jews, 368, 433, 436, 441, 468
Jihnsky, General, 9, 21
Joffe, 133

Joffre, Marshal, 36, 97, 181
June 30, 1934, events of, 451-465
Jung, Edgar, 452, 457, 461, 462
Jutland, battle of, 88; 16th anniversary
of (1932), 393

Kaas, 446, 447
Kahr, von, 408, 462
Kaiser, the See Wilhelm II, Kaiser
Kaisenn, the. See Auguste Victoria,
Empress

Kaiserlautern, speech of Pruning at, 438
Kapelle, Admiral von, 233
Kapp j^tsch, 243, 252, 254, 256, 257 w.,
290, 403

Karl Liebknechthaus, police-raid on, 439
Kellogg-Briand Pact, 284-285
Kemal Pasha, Mustapha, 144-145
Kemmel Hill, German capture of, 149
Kerensky. See Provisional Government,
Kerensky’s

492

INDEX

Kerri, 451

Kiel, naval mutiny at, 188, 189
Kiev, occupation by Central Powers of,
132

Kluck, General von, 32
Kolberg, Hmdenburg’s G.H.Q. at, 214,
217, 219, 282, 301-302
Koniggratz, battle of, 4, 124
Konigin Restaurant, Kurfurstendamm,
Berlin, 365

Konigsberg, Nationalist demonstration
at (June 1922), 244-245
Konigsplatz, Berlin, the, 235
Kornilov, General, 121
Kovno, Hmdenburg’s projected offen-
sive against, 56-57, 61; German
storming of, 60; Hindenburg’s G.H.Q
at, 61-62, 81, 95, Russian attempted
“break-thjough” to, 66-67, 69
Kreuznach, German Imperial G.H.Q. at,
95-96, 97-98, 99, 100, 106, 107, 122,
124, 127, 130, 136, 143, 144, confer-
ence to determine successor to Beth-
mann HoUweg at, 101, 102, con-
ference to determme terms of Treaty
of Breat-Litovsk at, 127-128
KroU Opera House, Reichstag session
m, 445, 446-447
Krosigk, Schwerin von, 431
Krupp von Bohlen, 256
Krupskaya, 118
Krylenko, 122
Kugelgen, Colonel von, 225
Kuhl, General von, 158
Kuhlmann, von, far-sightedness of, 125,
155; and the Papal Peace Note
(August 1917), 113, 114, 115; at
Crown Council meeting at Schloss
Bellevue (September 11, 1917), 114;
and the proposal to annex Belgium,
114, 115; and Lemn’s passage through
Germany, 119; his conviction of the
impossibility of a German victory m
the held, 125, his opposition to the
conclusion of an annexationist peace
with Russia, 125, 126, 127, 133, 138;
and proposed “German solution” of
Polish question, 126; his opposition
to General Staff’s proposed measures
regarding Courland and Lithuania,
127, 128; at conference at Brest-
Litovsk to decide terms of Russian
Peace Treaty, 128, 131-132; arranges
for Hoffmann a private audience with
the Emperor, 128, 132; and the re-
sumption of hostilities with Russia,
132; his refusal to offer his resignation

Kuhlmann, von — continued

as Foreign Minister, 132, his support
of proposed German peace offer (at
the beginning of 1918), 137; attacks
Supreme Command m Borsen-Zeitung
(January 1918), 141, his proposed
German peace offensive (June 1918),
151, 153, Haeften’s attempt to secure
his reconcihation with the Supreme
Command, 152; his Reichstag speech
(June 24, 1918), 153-155, his dismissal
from the Foreign Ministry, 154-155

Landhund of East Prussia, 311, 312, 313-
314, 315, 344, 365, 377, 388, 423, 424,
426

Lansdowne, Lord, peace letter of, 153
League of Nations, the, admission of
Germany mto, 276, 277, 279, 282-
283, 299; German withdrawal from,
450

Ledebour, 154, 168
Leinert, 226, 441
Leinster f the, torpedoed, 171
Leipart, 428

Leipzig, trial of “war-crimmals” at, 232
Lemberg, battle of, 37
Lemn, 87, 117-120, 121, 123, 465
Leopold, of Bavaria, Prmce, 78, 121,
127

Lersner, 176

Lessing, Theodore, 270, 271 n,
Liauyang, battle of, 20
Lichnowsky, Prmce, 216
Lichtefelde barracks, courts -martial m,
463

Liebknecht, Karl, 119, 120, 173, 201,
207, 211, 213

Liege, German capture of, 13, 180,
proposed German military occupa-
tion of, 114, 115, 155
Limbsee, estate of, 3
Lmsingen, 49, 51, 52, 53
Lithuama, German measures regarding,
125, 127, 128, 135
Litzmann, General, 281, 334
Livonia, German occupation of, 132;

German measures regarding, 135
Lloyd George, Rt. Hon. David, 97
Lobe, Doctor, vii, viii, 315-316, 441
LobeU, von, 306, 307
Locarno Agreements, 247, 248, 275-276,
277, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283
Lodz, battle of, 41, 43-44, 45
London, Secret Treaty of, 123
London Agreements (on reparation pay-
ments), 274

INDEX 493

Lotzen, Hmdenburg’s G H.Q. at, 56, 57,
58, 61, 81, 95

Lubbe, van der, 439

Ludendoifl:, Field-Marshal Erich T-on,
character and abilities, 17, 27, 184;
early career, 180, rivalry with Groner,
180-181, 182, his appointment as
Chief of Operations, 180; his approval
of Moltke’s changes in the Schlieffen
Plan, 180, 181, his appointment as
Chief of Staff to the Eighth Army, 13,
14-15, and the capture of Liege, 13,
14, 180-181, decorated with Pour le
Mente cross, 13, his first meeting with
Hindenburg, 16-17, 18; his relation-
ship with Hmdenburg, 17-18, 50, 51,
73, 143, 166, 172, 173, 177-179, and
the battle of Tannenberg, 16, 18-20,
21, 22, 23-24, 26-27, 28; and the first
battle of the Masurian Lakes, 25-26;
awarded Iron Cross, 28, possible con-
sequences of his appointment, with
Hindenburg and Hoffmann, to the
Supreme Command in 1914, 35, 36;
his proposed appointment as Chief of
Staff to Ninth Army, under Schubert,
37, appomted Chief of Staff to Eighth
and Nmth Armies, 37; and Hmden-
burg’s Pohsh campaign (Sept. -Oct
1914), 39, 40, and Hindenburg’s East
Prussian campaign (Nov -Dec 1914),
41, 42, 43-44, appointed Chief of Staff
m the East, 43, at conference with
Falltenhayn at Mezieres (October
1914), 42, 43; his proposed Eastern
solution for winning the war, 47, 81;
his quarrel with Faikenhayn, 49, SC-
SI, 52, 57, 68, 59, 61, 77-78, 136; his
appomtment as Chief of Staff to the
new SUdarmee, and its rescmdment,
49-50, 51-52, demands Falkenhayn's
dismissal from his position as Chief of
the General Staff, 52; his proposed
Kovno offensive (June 1916), 66-57,
58; and the conference with the
Emperor and Faikenhayn at Posen
(July 1915), 57, 58; his proposed
offensive beyond Kovno and Vilna
(August 1915), 60, 61, resists Falken-
hayn’s withdrawal of forces from
Eastern Front (Sept.-Oct. 1915), 62,
64, his plan for a new offensive against
Russia (for 1916), 65; and the Russian
offensive (March 1916), 66-67, and
Hmdenburg’s appointment to the
command of whole Eastern Front, 67;
and the Russian offensive (August

Ludendorff, Field-Marshal Erich von —
continued

1916), 69; postpones threatened

resignation, 70, his appomtment as
Fust Quartermaster-General, 71, 72,
73, 84, as Fust Quartermaster-

General, 77-78, 83-84, 85, 90, 95, 109,
110, 111, 115-116, 119, 131, 136, 137,
138-139, 140, 143, 158, 166, tours
Western Front (September 1916), 80-
81, 94, abandons Eastern solution for
winnmg the war, 81, and the liquida-
tion of the position at Verdun, 81, 82;
and the umfication of command of
Central Powers, 82; and the adoption
of unrestricted U-boat warfare, 82,
83, 88, 89-92, 101, and the mvitation
to the United States to mediate, 82,
83, 92, and the German shortage of
munitions, 81-82, 83, and the meeting
of the German war -council at Cam-
brai, 83, 94, and the Pohsh question,
85-87, 93, 117, 125, 126-127, 128, 129,
131, 138, 139, and the proclamation of
the Kmgdom of Poland, 85-86, 87, 93,
117, 125, his failure to conclude peace
with Russia, 87-88, and the Rumanian
campaign (1916), 82, 89, 90, and the
German peace offer (December 1916),
90-91; at meetmg of Imperial council
at Pless (January 9, 1917), 91, 92; and
the French capture of Douaumont, 91,
94, and the construction of the Hm-
denburg Line, 94, 117; his agitation
during the British assault on the
Hindenburg Lme, 97, 98, on the hold-
ing of the Hindenburg Lme, 98; at
conference at Kreuznach to decide on
Bethmann HoUweg’s successor as
Chancellor, 101, 102, and the rejection
of Hatzfeldt as possible successor to
Bethmann Hollwegg in Chancellor-
ship, 101, 102, and the proposed ap-
pomtment of Bulow as Chancellor,
101-102, 103-104; proposes his resigna-
tion as Fust Quartermaster-General,
106, 107; and the dismissal of Beth-
mann HoUweg from the Chancellor-
ship, 100-105, 106, 107, offers Beth-
mann Hollweg Embassy at Con-
stantmople, 107 n.', and the German
Peace Resolution (July 1917), 106,
110-111, 112, 125, and Michaelis as
Chancellor, 107, 108-109, hia hope for
the conclusion of an annexationist
peace, 110; and the reply to the Papal
Peace Note, 112-113, 114-115, and the

2 K

494

INDEX

Ludendorff, Field-Marshal Erich von —
continued

question of Belgian independence,
113, 114-115, 137, 155, his proposed
military occupation of Liege, 115, and
the passage of Lenm through Ger-
many, 117-120, 123; and the appomt-
ment of Hertling as Chancellor, 122,
138, and the negotiations for a Russian
Armistice, 122; and the negotiation of
the Treaty of Brest -Lit ovsk, 124-128,
129, 131, 132, 133, 136, 138, 139, 151,
206, and proposed transfer of troops
from Eastern to Western Front, 124,
134, 135, 148, his proposed measures
regarding Courland and Lithuania,
125, 127, 128, his quarrel mth Hoft-
mann, 129-131, 138, demands Hofl-
mann’s dismissal from his position as
Chief of StafE m the East, 131, and the
resumption of hostihties with Russia,
132, his paranceic complaint, 134-135,
and the German -Ukrainian tradmg
organization, 134; sends expeditions
to Finland, Batoum and Baku and
Odessa, 135; his measures m Rumama,
the Ukrame, Lithuama, Courland,
Livonia and Estonia, 135; and the
German Offensive of 1918, 124, 133,
137, 138, 143, 145-146, 151-152; and
proposed German peace offensive (at
the begmnmg of 1918), 137; and the
dismissal of Valentim from his posi-
tion as Chief of the Emperor’s Civil
Cahmet, 140-141, dommates internal
government of the country, 142-143,
takes up residence at Imperial G.H Q.,
Spa, 143; undamaged m railway
accident, 144; his meetmg with
Mustapha Kemal Pasha, 144, 145; and
the offensive agamst Amiens (March-
April 1918), 146, 147, 148, and the
second German offensive of 1918
(Apnl-May), 149; and proposed Ger-
man peace offensive (June 1918), 151,
152, 153, 164, 155; his breach with
Kuhlmann, 152; and the attack along
the Chemin des Dames (May-June
1918), 150, 161, his proposed military
occupation of Belgium, 155, his assur-
ance of victory, 156-157; and the
events of August 8, 1918, 157; his
mental deterioration, 157, 170, 265,
hi8 proposed resignation as First
Quartermaster-General, 157, at Crown
Council meeting at Spa (August 14,
1918), 158; and the proposal of an

Ludendorff, Field-Marshal Erich von —
continued

Armistice, 161-162, 163, 165, 166-167,
168-169, 170, his appeals for action
(October 1918), 170, his resignation
as First Quartermaster-General, 170,
176-177, 179, and the Armistice
negotiations, 172, 174, 175, and the
Rumanian Armistice, 206; on list of
"war-criminals”, 231; and his pro-
posed trial as a "war-crinunal” on the
general behalf, 232, his appearance
before the Committee of Enquiry
(November 1919), 233, 234, 236, 239,
and the "stab-m-the-back” theory,
238 w.; his opposition to the Repubhc,
243, adopts worship of Thor and Odin,
255, his support of the Kapp putsch,
254, and the Munich revolt (1923),
254, and the presidential election
(1925), 254-255, his meetmg with
Hmdenburg at Tannenberg ceremony
(1927), 317

Ludendorff, Margarethe, 16
Ludwig, Emil, 283
Lusitania, sinkmg of the, 92
Luther, Hans, as Finance Minister
durmg Ebert’s presidency, 251; his
use of Article 48 of Constitution, 329;
his visit to Hmdenburg on the latter’s
election as president (1925), 268, 277;
his visit to Stresemann after his return
from visitmg Hmdenburg, 277, his
support of Stresemann’s foreign policy,
277, 283, 305, and the revaluation of
internal debts, 304, 305, and the
adoption of new taxation, 304, 305,
and the Cahmet crisis (December
1925), 305-306, his formation of a
mmority government (December
1925), 306, and the bill regulating the
flags of German diplomatic missions
abroad, 308, his resignation of the
Chancellorship, 308

Lutsk, Russian “break-through” at,
67, 70

Luttwitz, General, 213, 290
Luxemburg, Rosa, 213
Lyncker, General von, 71, 72, 91, 106,
107

MacDonald, Rt. Hon. Ramsay, 275, 345,
382

Mackensen, Field-Marshal August von,
at battle of Gumbmnen, 11; at battle
of Tannenberg, 22, 23, 24, 26, 29, and
Hmdenburg’s Polish campaign (Sept.-

INDEX

496

Mackensen, Field-Marshal August von
— continued

Oct 1914), 38, 39-40, and the “break-
through” at Gorhce, 55, and the
Rumanian campaign (1916), 82-83,
his dLspatch of a report to the Emperor
on the situation in the Balkans and
Austro-Hungarian Empire (January
1918), 141-142, on list of “war-
crimmals”, 231; at the dedication
ceremomes of the Tannenberg Memo-
rial (1924, 1927), 245, 317
Maercker, General, 219
Malcolm, Maj -Gen Sir]Sreill,216,238 ti.,
246-247

Maltzan, 284, 294
Mangin, General, 148, 160
Marburg, Umversity of, Papen’s speech
before, 467-458, 459, 460, 461, 465
Marenholtz, Baioness von, 265
Marienburg, Hmdenburg’s G H Q. at
(August 1914), 18, 19, 20, 21, 22-23
Markienen, castle of, Hmdenburg’s stay
at, 316

Marne, the, battle of, 31, 33, 35, 37, 46,
97, Germans withdraw behind (July
1918), 156

MarschaU, General Count von, xiv, 183,
187, 195
Martin, 105

Marx, Wilhehn, his use of Article 48 of
Constitution, 329; as candidate in the
presidential election (1925), 255-256,
263, 266, 267; congratulates Hinden-
burg on his election as president
(1925), 267; his appomtment as Chan-
cellor (January 1927), 309-310, 319;
and proposed settlement of small
holdmgs in East Prussia, 310; and
Hmdenburg’s pubhc repudiation of
war-guilt, 317, 318, and the raismg
of the salaries of Cml Servants, 319-
320, and the Confessional Schools Bill,
320, 321, his failure to retam Hmden-
burg’s confidence as Chancellor, 397,
his resignation of the Chancellorship,
321

Masurian Lakes, the, 8, 9, 10, 11; first
battle of, 26, 30, 2nd battle of,
53, 64

Maurice, Maj -Gen, Sir Frederick, 238 n.
Max, Prmce, of Baden, his activities
previous to the ChanceUorship, 164,
and the German Peace Resolution
(July 1917), 112; his support of the
German proposed peace offer (at the
begmnmg of 1918), 137; urges neces-

Max, Prmce, of Baden — continued
sity of German peace offensive (May-
June 1918), 151, 152, 164; his appoint-
ment as Chancellor, 163-164, as Chan-
cellor, 164, 272, his debt to his secre-
tary, Kurt Hahn, 164; and Hmden-
buig’s telegram demandmg the im-
mediate conclusion of an Armistice
(October 1, 1918), 164, 176; at Crown
Council meeting (October 2, 1918),
165-166, 176; and the proposal of an
Armistice, 165-167, 168-169, and

President Wilson, 165, and Hinden-
burg’s letter demandmg the immediate
conclusion of an Armistice (October 2,
1918), 166-167, 229, and the German
reply to Wilson’s First Note, 171; and
the German reply to Wilson’s Second
Note, 173, and Wilson’s Thn'd Note,
174; BLindenburg’s dispatch of a per-
sonal protest against his negotiations
for an Armistice (October 24, 1918),
174, 178, and Hmdenburg’s telegram
denymg his demand for an immediate
truce (October 24, 1918), 174, 175,

176, 177; and Hindenburg’s circular
message to the Army Group Com-
manders (October 24, 1918), 174, 176,

177, and Hmdenburg’s letter denying
his responsibility for the telegram of
October 24 (November 1918), 175;
refusal of his offer of resignation, 176;
and the dismissal of Ludendorff from
the Supreme Command (October
1918), 177; urges Hmdenburg’s reten-
tion in Supreme Command (October
1918), 177, his acceptance of Wilson’s
conditions for an Armistice, 178; his
protests agamst Emperor’s desertion
of the capital (October 30, 1918), 182-

183, 184; his anxiety to secui’e Em-
peror’s voluntary abdication, 182-183,

184, 185, 186, 187, 189-190, 200, 355,
his mfluenza attack, 184; Groner’s
personal attack before Emperor on
(November 1, 1918), 185, and the
Fourth Wilson Note, 186; and Groner’s
demand for an immediate Armistice
(November 1918), 186, and the Social
Democrat leaders’ ultimatum (Nov-
ember 7, 1918), 189, 190; requests to
be allowed to resign (November 7,
1918), 189, Emperor telephones re-
fusal to abdicate to (November 7,
1918), 190; his telephone message to
Spa announcmg necessity of the
Emperor’s immediate abdication

496

INDEX

Max, Prince, of Baden — contimied
(November 9, 1918), 200, announces
Emperor’s abdication and Crown
Prince’s renunciation of right of
succession, 200, 201, his resignation of
the Chancellorship (November 9,
1918), 200-201, Emperor’s conviction
of hia responsibility for his own
abdication, 203-204

Mein Kamj)fy autobiography of Hitler,
399

Meissnei, Otto, origm, abilities, and
early career, 268-269, his association
with Rudolph Nadolny, 268-269,
appointed Secretary of State to Ebert,
269; his visit to Hmdenburg on the
latter’s election to the presidency
(1925), 268, 269, confirmed as Secre-
tary of State by Hmdenburg, 270, his
dommation of Hmdenburg durmg the
latter’s first presidency, 60, 270, 285,
324, influences Hmdenburg to support
Stresemann’s foreign pohcy, 278-279,
281, 283, 285, 295-296, on Hinden-
burg’s failure to grasp difficulty of
obtammg a parhamentary majority,
304, and proposed expropriation of
ex-Kaiser’s former properties, 306;
and Hmdenburg ’s pubhc repudiation
of war-guilt (Autumn 1927), 318, and
the attitude of Hmdenburg to the
raising of the salaries of Civil Ser-
vants, 320, and the appomtment of
Muller as Chancellor (May 1928),
323, allows Hmdenburg to fall mto the
hands of a Palace Camanlla, 270, 285,
299, 324, and the appomtment of
Brunmg as Chancellor, 340-341, 346,
and the re-election of Hmdenburg as
president, 366, 369, his advice to
Brunmg not to go to Neudeck (May 26,
1932), 388-389; and the dismissal of
Brunmg from the Chancellorship, 377,
383-384, 388-389, 390-391, 394, and
the appomtment of Papen as Chan-
cellor (June 1932), vii, 399, and the
supplanting of the Braun Government
m Prussia, 402, at Hitler’s mterview
with Hmdenburg (August 13, 1932),
410; and the dismissal of Papen from
the Chancellorship (November 1932),
419, and the appomtment of Hitler
as Chancellor (January 1933), 433;
secures Hindenburg’s ignorance of
Hitler’s activities, 449; as Secretary of
State to Hitler, 269

JVIertz, General von, 228, 474

Messmes ridge, blown up by British, 99,
Germans storm (April 1918), 149
Metz, Hindenhurg welcomed at (Septem-
ber 1916), 80-81

Meuse, the, attempted German retreat
to, 186

Mezieres, German Imperial G H.Q. at
(October 1914), 42, 43, 65
hlichaehs. Doctor, hia appomtment as
Chancellor, 90, 107-108, 109, as the
mouthpiece of the Supreme Com-
mand, 108-109, 122, 163, 271-272, and
the German Peace Resolution (July
1917), 110-112, and the Papal Peace
Note (Aug -Sept 1917), 113, 114, 115-
116, writes secret letter to Pacelli
(September 24, 1917), 115-116; and
Lenm’s passage through Germany,
119

Micum Agreements, 249
Mirbach, asaassmation of, 295
Mitau, Diet of, requests Kaiser to
become Duke of Courland, 127
Mogilev, abdication of Tsar at, 116
Moltke, Count Eelmuth von, 7, 10, 89,
149, 287

Moltke (the younger). Count von, 5, 8,
13, 14, 16, 27, 31-32, 33, 34-35, 46,
180, 181

Monarchy, proposed restoration of, 353,
354, 355, 367-368

Mons, conference of Ludendorff with
staff officers at (November 11, 1917),
137

Moon, German capture of, 121
Moreuil, fightmg at (March-April 1918),
149

Muller, Hermann, his mclusion m Bauer
Cabmet (June 1919), 218; his forma-
tion of a government (May 1928), 323;
and the balancing of the budget
(1929), 323; and the negotiation of the
Young Plan, 323, 324, 325; his lU-
health, 327, 328, and the campaign of
Schacht against his financial policy,
332, and the proposed formation of a
Nationalist Government (December

1929) , 332; receives a vote of con-
fidence, 332; and the adoption of
financial reforms (1929-30), 336, 337,
341, 343, 344-346; loyalty of Bruning
to, 341, 345; and the ratification of the
Young Plan, 344-346; his acceptance
of Hindenhurg’s Osthilfe proposal,
344, 377; at party meetmg (March 27,

1930) , 345-346; Hmdenhurg’s refusal
of his request to apply Article 48 of

IlSTDEX

497

Muller, Hermann — continued

Constitution, 34.6, his failure to retain
Hmdenburg’s confidence, 397, his dis-
missal from the Chancellorship, 328,
329, 337, 340-34-1, 345, 373, 416

Muller, — , Chief of the Emperor’s Naval
Stafi, 91

Munich, Nazi revolt m (1923), 243-244,
247, 254, 292, 337

Munitions, German shortage of, 77,
81-82, 83, 100

Mussolmi, Bemto, emulation by Hitler
of, 350, 408, 410, 451; meets Hitler
at Venice, 456, 458

Nadolny, Rudolph, 268-269

Narev, German “break-through” on the,
57, 60

Nation Beige j the, and the election of
Hmdenburg as president (1925), 277

National Liberal Party, the, 105

National Socialist Party, the, and the
“stab-m-the-back” theory, 229, 235,
and the presidential election (1925),
255; and the general election (May
1928), 322; its aUiance with the
Nationalist Party, 326, 331; its cam-
paign agamat Hmdenburg’ s ratifica-
tion of Young Plan, 333-334, 337, its
refusal to form a coahtion government
with the Right (December 1929), 337,
and the general election (September
1930), 347-348, mcrease in its member-
ship (during 1931), 350; Brumng’s
plan to brmg mto the Government,
351, 379; and Hmdenburg’ s proposed
declaration as Beichsvei weser for life,
354-355; and proposed re-election of
Hmdenburg as president, 352, 353,
354, 355, 363, 366, and the proposed
dismissal of Schleicher from office,
366; and the presidential election
(1932), 368, 369, and Brumng’s offer
of share m coalition government m
Prussia, 373, 386, 387, 390, 391, 401;
and the Prussian general election
(1932), 377, 378-379, 401; and the
appointment of Papen as Chancellor,
381, 395, 399; its attacks on the Papen
Government, 400-401, 405, 410, and
the Rape of Prussia, 401, 402; and the
general election (July 1932), 405, 406,
and the general election (November
1932), 415, its negotiations with the
Nationahst Party for a coahtion
imder Hitler’s Chancellorship, 423;
bankruptcy of (January 1933), 425,

National Sociahst Party — continued
426, its press - attacks agamst
Schleicher as Chancellor, 428, and the
general election (March 1933), 440-
441, and the events of June 30, 1934,
452-455, and the pubhcation of Hm-
denburg’s will, 469

Nationahst Party, the, ineptitude and
failure of, 321-322; and Hmdenburg’s
proposal of an Armistice, 205, and
Hmdenburg’s responsibility for the
Emperor’s flight, 205, 243, 257; and
Hindenburg’s appearance before the
Committee of Enquiry (November
1919), 233-235, 239, and the “stab-m-
the-back” theory, 233, 234-235, 239-
240, 257; and the Komgsberg demon-
stration (June 1922), 244-245; its
campaign against the Pohcy of Re-
nunciation, 268, 276, 277, 278, 280-
281, 283, 295, 296, 318-319, 326; and
the presidential election (1925), 247-
248, 252, 253-254, 255, 256, 257-259,
268, 276, 277, 281, 319, and the
appomtment of Meissner as Secretary
of State to Hmdenburg, 269, its with-
drawal from Luther Government
(December 1935), 305; and the forma-
tion of the Marx Government (Janu-
ary 1927), 308-310, and the bill to
increase Civil Servants’ salaries, 319,
320, and the general election (May
1928), 321, 322, and Hmdenburg’s
pubhc repudiation of German war-
guilt, 318; and the agitation for grant-
mg dictatorial powers to BQndenburg,
323-324, 337; its campaign agamst the
acceptance of the Young Plan, 331;
its aUiance with the National Socialist
Party, 331, 350; resignation of Trevir-
anus and Count Westarp from the,
331, its campaign agamst Hmden-
burg’s ratification of the Young Plan,
332-335; and Hmdenburg’s proposed
declaration as Beichsverweser for hie,
354; and proposed re-election of Hm-
denburg as president, 361, 362-363,
and the presidential election (1932),
368, 370, 371, and Bruning’s dismissal
from the Chancellorship, 377, 391; and
Papen’s appomtment as Chancellor
(May 1932), 396, and the Papen
Government, 399, 400, 405, and the
general election (July 1932), 406, at
Reichstag session (September 9, 1932),
412, 413, 414; and the appomtment of
Hitler as Chancellor (January 1933),

498

IKDEX

Nationalist Party — continued
423-426, 427, 435; its press-attacks
against Schleicher as Chancellor, 428;
and the general election (March 1933),
440; evicted by Hitler from Govern-
ment, 449, 451, 452

Netherlands, Queen of the, German
proposal to seek mediation of, 159;
requested by Kmg of England to
grant asylum to Kaiser, 204 n.
Neudeck, public presentation to Hin-
denburg of, 311-315, 316
Neurath, Baron von, 431, 455
Nicholas Nicholaievitch, Grand Duke,
37, 38-39, 40, 52, 60, 61, 126
Niemann, Alfred, 4, 111, 156, 204 w.
NiveUe, General, 97, 98-99. See NiveUe
Offensive

NiveUe Offensive, 97, 98-99, 149
Noske, Gustav, 213, 215, 218, 219, 234-
252, 271, 289, 290

Novo-Georgievsk, capitulation of, 60

Odessa, occupation by Central Povers
of, 132, German mission to, 135
Offensive (1918), German, 133, 135, 137,
138-139, 143, 144-151, 152, 153,
155-156, 157, 158, 160
Oldenburg- Januschau, Baron von, 311,
347, 402, 404

Oramenburg Concentration Camp, 442
Order of Maria Theresa, 10 w-.

Orgesch, 253, 298
Osel, German capture of, 121
Osthilfe fund, the, 344, 365, 377, 423-
424, 435

Ottav^a Agreements, 382
Pabst, 290 n,

PaceUi, Cardmal, 112, 113, 115
Pan-German League, 111, 326
Papal Peace Note, 112-116
Papen, Franz von, origm and character,
396, early career, 267, 395-396; his
name refused for election to Reichs-
tag, 396; and the direction of
Germania, 397; and Hindenburg’s
election as president (1925), 267, his
appomtment as Chancellor (June
1932), vii, 380-381, 395, 397, his
relationship with Hmdenburg, 267-
268, 380-381, 397-398, 400, 407, 419,
420, 422, 426, 466; expelled from
Centre Party, 399; and the delay in
the reinstatement of Hitler’s Storm
Troops, 400; and the German with-
drawal from the Disarmament Con-

Papen, Franz von — continued
ference, 401, and the Rape of Prussia,
401-403, 414, his proposal of constitu-
tional reforms, 404, 409, no mention
of his name in “Shadow Cabmet”
drawn up at Furstenberg conference,
406; refuses to resign ChanceUorship
m favour of Hitler (August 1932), 406,
407, his interview with Hitler (August
13, 1932), 408-409, and the dissolution
of the Reichstag (September 1932),
412, 413-414; is prepared to go on
havmg elections mdefimtely, 412, and
the Reichstag session (September 9,

1932) , 413-414; his plan for mergmg
the three Southern States mto Reich,
415; and the general election (Novem-
ber 1932), 415, offers resignation as
Chancellor, 416-417; his dismissal
from the ChanceUorship, 418, 419-
420; his joint authorship with Oskar
von Hmdenburg of a plan to eliminate
aU hostile bodies, 420-421; and Hitler’s
appomtment as ChanceUor (January

1933) , 423, 425-426, 427, 428, 429-431,
432, 433, 435-436, his meetmg with
Hitler at Cologne (January 8, 1933),
426-427, his appomtment as Vice-
ChanceUor m Hitler Cabinet, 423, his
right to exercise presidential veto m
Hitler Cabmet, 433, deprived of
government of Prussia, 435, mobihses
Stahlhelm, 440, considers carrymg off
Hmdenburg to Dobentz mihtary
depot, 440; his presence dispensed
with at Hitler’s mterviews with
Hmdenburg, 435, 441, refuses to admit
to Hmdenburg the miscarriage of his
schemes, 449, 452; and the Brown
Terror, 452, his speech before the
University of Marburg, 452, 456-458,
459-460; at Hamburg race-meetmg
(June 24, 1934), 459-460; his arrest
and the preservation of his life, 397,
462, 464, 465-466, resigns Vice-
ChanceUorship, 464; his appomtment
as Minister m Vienna, 466; and the
pubhcation of Hmdenburg’s wiU, 469

Pans, German bombardment of, 147

Payer, von, 105, 109, 111, 192

Peace, German proposal to conclude
I (December 1916), 90-91; proposed
conclusion of an annexationist, 101,
110, 111, 112, 114, 115, 139, 149, 155;
of negotiation and compromise, pro-
posed conclusion of a, 110-112, 125,
127, 152, 155, 159, 160; papal pro-

INDEX

499

Peace — continued

posals for the conclusion of, 113,
German proposal to conclude (Sum-
mer 1918), 151-155

Peace Resolution, German, 103, 104,
106, 110-112, 113, 115, 125, 133, 154,
160

Peipus, Lake, Central Powers advance
to, 132

Peronne, German capture of, 147
Petam, Marshal, 99, 148
Pilsudski, Marshal, 87
Planck, Erwm, 409, 413
Platten, Fritz, 118

Pless, Castle of, German Imperial
G.H Q at, under Falkenhayn, 65, 58,
59, 60, 64, 65, 68, 69, 70-71, 72, 77;
under Hmdenburg, 77, 79, 80, 81, 88,
89, 95, 144; conferences (June, July
1915) between Ehndenburg, Luden-
dorft and Kaiser at, 67-68, 69, Hmden-
burg and Ludendorff upon appomt-
ment to General Staff received at, 72,
84, meetmg of Imperial war-coimcil
at (January 1917), 91-92, 100
Plessen, General von, and the dismissal
of Falkenhayn from the Supreme
Command, 71, and the appomtment
of Michaehs as Chancellor, 107; as the
Emperor’s Adjutant - General at
Chateau de la Frameuse, Spa, 183;
and Groner’s suggestion that Em-
peror should seek death in the front
hne, 187; and the execution of the
Emperor’s proposals to restore order,
191-192, 193, at conference of officers
(November 9, 1918), 195; at Imperial
conference at Spa (November 9, 1918),
195, 196, 197, and the arrangements
for the flight of the Emperor, 203,
205; and the preparation of the
Protocol covering the events at Spa
on November 9, 1918, 242 n.

Pomcar6, Raymond, 284, 318
Poland, proclamation of the Kingdom
of, 85-86, 87, 117, 125; required to
surrender frontier and pay a contribu-
tion to expenses of war, 155; her pro-
posed mclusion m Locarno Pact, 279
Polish campaign, Hmdenburg’s (Sept.-
Oct. 1914), 37-41, 44
Pohsh Corridor, question of, 380, 454
Polish question, the, 85-87, 93, 117, 125-
127, 128-131, 155, proposed “Austrian
solution” of the, 125-126, 128; pro-
posed “German solution” of the, 126,
128, 129; Supreme Command’s pro-

Pohsh question — continued
posed solution of, 126-127, 128, 129,
131, Hoffmann’s proposed solution of,
129

Portuguese divisions, wiped out (April
1918), 149
Posadowsky, 154

Posen, Hindenburg’s G H.Q. at (Nov.-
Dee 1914), 42,43

Potempa, murder of Communist work-
man at, 414

Potsdam, dedicatory service at (March
21, 1933), 443-445

Preussisck eLandeszeitung, att ac k agains t
Stresemann m the, 281
Prittwitz und Gaffron, Col. -General Max
von, 9, 11, 12, 13, 16, 16, 19, 23, 27, 28
Progressive Party, the, and German
Peace Resolution, 112
Prolongation Bill (January 1932), 360,
361, 362, 363
Protopopoff, 86

Provisional Government, Kerensky’s,
98, 117, 118, 119, 121, 122, 212
Prussia, grantmg of new franchise law
to, 100, 104, 105-106; proposed m-
clusion of Nazis m government of,
373-374, 386, 387, 390, 391, 401, Rape
of, 401-403, 414-415
Prussian Cadet Corps, 4
Przemysl, Russian siege of, raismg of,
39

Radom, Hindenburg’s G.H.Q. at (Octo-
ber 1914), 40
RapaUo, Treaty of, 294
Rathenau, Walter, 172, 240, 248, 249,
251, 280, 294, 334

Red Fightmg Front, prohibition of the,
374

Meichsbanner, proposed suppression of
the, 375, 376, 384

Reichstag, the, its abdication of its
power m favour of the General Staff
(October 1916), 90, 108; its acceptance
of Michaehs as Chancellor, 108, 109-
110, and the German Peace Resolu-
tion (July 1917), 109, 111-112, and
Kuhlmann’s speech (June 24, 1918),
153-154, extension of its relations
with the Reichswehr, 303, mfluence of
the comradeship of the war m, (m that
elected in 1924), 303-304; session of
(September 1932), 411-414; opening
session at KroU Opera House of
(March 23, 1933), 446-447
Reichstag Fire Trial, 439

500

INDEX

Reichsweiir, the, its tradition of pohtical
domination, 286-287; reorganization
of, 215, 274, 279-280, 284, 288, 289-
291, 294, 295, 298, and the crushing
of the second Spartacist Rising, 215,
252-253, 289, 290; and the Kapp
putsch, 290; and Hitler’s Munich
rising (1923), 292, 337, and the Com-
munist rismgs (1923), 337, and the
conclusion of a treaty of neutrality
and non-aggression with the Soviet
Union, 284, becomes a factor in
political decisions, 292-293; its threat-
ened “Red Army on the Rhine”, 294,
extension of its relations with the
Reichstag, 303, its assistance re-
quested for the proposed financial
reforms (1929-30), 336-337; proposed
mcorporation of Hitler’s Storm Troops
into, 374-375, 453, 455; Brumng’s
proposals for, 382, at Potsdam dedi-
catory service (March 31, 1933), 443-
445, and Papen’s Marburg speech,
457, 458; and the events of June 30,
1934, 464; instructions m Hmden-
burg’s will regarding, 475, its cam-
paign for the “rehabihtation” of
Schleicher and Bredow, 302 n.
Rennenkampf, General, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,
19-21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29
Reparations question, the, 246, 274,
285-286, 310, 319, 323, 324-326, 349,
354, 361, 379, 380, 400, 401
Revolution of November 1918, 134, 160,
188, 189, 191, 197, 201, 207
Rheims, battle of, 155-166
Rhineland, evacuation of the, 258, 274,
279, 280, 282, 284, 285-286, 319, 325,
326-327, 340, 343; First Rhineland
Zone evacuated, 282, Second and
Third Rhmeland Zones evacuated,
286, 326

Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 423, 460
Richthofen, 111
Rieth, Doctor, 466
Riga, German captuie of, 121
Rodenberg, Colonel von, 281
Roedern, Count, 169
Rohm, Ernst, his homosexual practices,
362, 453, 461, 463; his contacts with
Schleicher, 351, 362, 363, 373, 374,
381, 390; urges Hitler to reject
Briining’s proposals for a Prolonga-
tion Bill, 362, 364; and Brunmg’s oSer
to the Nazis of share m coahtion
government in Prussia, 374, 390; his
proposal to mcorporate the S.A. mto

Rohm, Ernst — continued

the Reichswehr, 375 n , 453, his dis-
agreement with Hitler on the relation
of the S A to the Reichswehr, 375 n ;
at Hitler’s mterview with Hinden-
burg (August 13, 1932), 409, 417,
quells mutmy of Hitler’s bodyguard
and foils an attempt on Fuh er's life,
425; enters Hitler Cabinet (January
1933), 435, 451, objects to proposed
reduction of the S.A , 454, 455;
opposition of Blomberg to, 455, his
rumoured appointment to the
Ministry of Defence m Schleicher’s
“Shadow Cabmet” (June 1933), 455,
461, murder of, 351, 375 n , 462
Roon, 287
Rosen, 228

Rumania, question of her jommg Central
Powers, 46, 47, 65, entry mto war,
70-71, 77, Armistice concluded by, 83,
206; delivery of oil-supplies to Ger-
many from, 83, 134, proposed incor-
poration m Austro-Hungarian Empire
of, 126, maintenance of German
army of occupation, 135
Rumanian campaign, German (1916),
35, 82-83, 89, 90, 256
Rupprecht, of Bavaria, Crown Prmce,
81, 94, 137, 146, 151, 152, 154, 169,
231, 232

Russia, German refusal of Austrian
suggestion to conclude peace with,
56 n,, breakmg off of first peace
negotiations between Germany and,
86-88, 117, last offensive of (July
1917), 120, concludes Armistice with
Germany, 122, 124; attempts to make
separate peace with Austria, 132;
German resumption of hostilities with,
132. See Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution, 87, 88, 98, 116-122

S. A., proposed reduction of the, 454-455.

See Storm Troops, Brtler’s
Saar Territory, Brum g’s proposal of its
immediate return toGermany, 380
St Quentm, (^rman offensive agamst,
145-149

Salonika, AUied occupation of, 62
Samsonov, General, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15,
19-22, 23, 24, 25, 28
San, attempted Austrian crossing of the
(October 1914), 38, 39
Sauerbruch, Doctor, 467
Sohacht, Hjalmar, 251, 320, 321, 324,
325, 328, 331-332, 349

IKDEX 501

Scharahorat, 286, 350

Scheer, Admiral von, 202, 231

Scheidemann, Philip, on the removal of
Groner fiom hia position as head of
War Office, 182, and the German
Peace Resolution (July 19, 1917), 111,
and Kuhlmann’s proposed peace oJfer
(June 1918), 154, his inclusion in Max
Cabinet (October 1918), 164, and the
appeals of Ludendorfi for action
(October 1918), 170; his trust of
Groner m the matter of the Emperor’s
abdication, 187, advises the accept-
ance of Wilson’s Second Note, 173,
proclaims the Socialist Repubho from
portico of Reichstag, 201; on the
Emperor’s flight to HoUand, 204 n.\
appomted Chancellor, 216, urges the
rejection of the first Alhed Peace con-
ditions, 216, urges the rejection of the
revised Allied Peace conditions, 216,
his resignation of the Chancellorship,
218

Soheuch, General von, 164

Schiele, 259, 331

SohJange, 269

Schleicher, General Kurt von, origm,
abilities, and early career, 296-297;
as Schreibtischoffizier durmg the war,
296-297, 386, 427; his association with
Groner, 297, 301, 302 n , 327, 376,
385; his friendship with Oskar von
Hindenburg, 296, 298-299, 303; his
contacts with Rohm, 351, 362, 363,
373, 374, 381, 390, his ambitious in-
trigues, 297-298, 302, 303, 327, 365,
418, his system of espionage in the
official world, 298, 389, 394; at
Groner’s interview with Hmdenburg
(November 10, 1918), 297; goes to
rescue of Ebert, imprisoned m the
Chancellery, 297, and the dismissal of
Seeckt from the active command of
the Reichswehr, 299-300, and the dis-
missal of Gessler from the Mimstry of
Defence, 299, 300-301; and the ap-
pomtment and dismissal of Heye as
General Commanding the Reichs-
wehr, 300, and the succession of
Hammerstemaa General Commanding
the Reichswehr, 300; and Groner’s
appointment as Minister of Defence,
301, 302; as Permanent Secretary m
civilian ministries, 303, promoted
Lieutenant-General, 303; obtams im-
mediate access to Hindenburg, 303;
and Hugenberg’a proposal to grant

Schleicher, General Kurt von — con-
iiiiued

dictatorial powers to Hindenburg,
324, his association with Groner when
actmg Chancellor, 327, his proposed
use of Article 48 of Constitution, 328-
329, 330, 342, his assistance requested
for proposed financial reforms, 336,
and the appomtment of Brunmg as
Chancellor, 328, 337-338, 340, 341,
342; his contacts with Rohm, 351,
352, 364, 373, 374, 381, his attempt to
harness the Nazi Party, 351, his first
meeting with Hitler, 361, and the pro-
posed Prolongation Bfll (1932), 362,
364, his proposal for Hindenburg to
rule by decree, 364, and the re-election
of Hindenburg as president, 364, 366,
hi3 plan for the dissolution of the
Reichstag, 364, 373, 381; his defence
of Brunmg before Hmdenburg, 364-
365; Goebbels’ conviction of the
necessity of his dismissal from office,
365; and the settlement of small-
holdings m East Prussia, 365, 366,
and Brunmg’s proposed expropriation
scheme for bankrupt estates m East
Prussia, 366, defended by Bruning
before Hmdenburg, 366; and Hinden-
burg’s proposal for Brumng’s resigna-
tion (April 1932), 372, and the sup-
pression of Hitler’s Storm Troops
(April 1932), 374, 375; his proposed
suppression of the Reichsbanner, 375,
376-377; and Groner’s dismissal from
the Mmistry of Defence, 376, 384-385;
mforms French Ambassador of Brun-
mg’s impending resignation of Chan-
cellorship, 383, 395, 397; and the
passage of the Fmance Bill (May 1932),
384, hia conversation with Bruning
(May 1932), 385-386, 427, leaves
secretly for Neudeck (May 1932), 389;
his advances to Brunmg for a re-
concdiation (May 1932), 390, and
Brumng’s dismissal from the Chan-
ceUorship, 373, 375, 377, 380, 381,
383, 384, 386, 387, 389-390; and the
appomtment of Papen as Chancellor,
vii, 380-381, 383, 387, 395, 397; his
plan to spht Centre Party, 397; as
Minister of Defence m Papen Cabinet,
398-399; and the delay in the re-
instatement of Hitler’s Storm Troops,
400; and the Rape of Prussia, 403, his
proposed dissolution of the Reichstag,
404, reassures trade union leaders of

602

INDEX

Schleiciier, General Kurt von — coii-
tinued

hjs intentions, 404, 405, his omission
from Nazi attacks on Papen Govern-
ment, 405, 407, his meeting with
Hitler at the Fuxstenberg barracks,
406, 407; and the dismissal of Papen
from the Chancellorship, 416, 418,

419, 421; and Papen’ a plan to secure
the elimmation of all hostile bodies,

420, 421, his appomtment as Chan-
cellor, 418-419, 422, as Chancellor,
422, adopts Brunmg’s expropriation
measure for bankrupt estates in East
Prussia, 422, 423; and the adjourn-
ment of the Reichstag for a month,
422-423, threatens to publish Reichs-
tag report on Osthilfe loans, 423-424;
and the Cologne meeting between
Hitler and Papen, 426, 426-427; and
the proposed further postponement of
the Reichstag (January 1933), 427-
428, oSers Chancellorship to Strasser,
428, his negotiations with the trade
union leaders, 428, 431; sends Ham-
merstem to impress upon Hmdenburg
the dangers of Hitler becommg Chan-
cellor, 428, his dismissal from the
Chancellorship, 424, 429; his visit to
Brumng on his dismissal from the
Chancellorship, 429; his rumoured
plan to confine Hmdenburg, Papen,
Oskar and Hitler, 431-432; his
rumoured “Shadow Cabinet” (June
1934), 456; murder of, 386, 456, 462,
463, funeral of, 302 n.

Schlieffen, Count Alfred von, 32 See
SchliefPen Plan

Schheffen Plan, 7, 8, 9, 10, 32-33,
35, 36, 46, 55, 56, 58, 180, 181,
228

Schmidt, 269
Scholtz, General, 57
Schroeder, Baron von, 426
Schubert, General von, 37
Sohucking, Walter, 216
Schulenburg, General Count von, at
Imperial conference at Spa (Novem-
ber 9, 1918), 196, 196, 197-199, and
the flLight of the Emperor, 201, 203,
204 n.; his traduction of Groner, 203,
301; and the preparation of the Proto-
col covermg the events at Spa on
November 9, 1918, 242 ? 2 ,.; his pro-
posed appomtment as Minister of
Defence to succeed Geasler, 301
Secret Pohce. See Gestapo

Seeckt, General Hans von, appearance
and gemus, 289, his lack of seniority
prevents his achievmg decisive power
durmg war, 35; appointed Chief of
StaS to Mackensen (Spring 1916), 55,
and the “break-through” at Gorhce,
55, 256, 293; and the Rumaman cam-
paign (1916), 266, his proposed
resumption of hostihties (February
1920), 294, hia appomtment to the
active command of the Reichswehr,
245, 289, and the reorganization of the
Reichswehr, 289, 290-291, 293-294,
295, 296, 298, 300, 302 n ; his keepmg
of the Reichswehr out of pohtics, 291-
292, 298, 302 n , and the Kapp putsch,
290, and Hitler’s revolt at Munich
(1923), 291-292, and the military
liaison with the Soviet Union, 293-
295, and the conclusion of the Treaty
of Rapallo, 294-295, and the conclusion
of a treaty of neutrality and non-
aggression with the Soviet Umon,
293-295, support of Nationalist Party
for his rapprochement with Soviet
Union, 295, his exercise of dictatorial
powers m Saxony and Thurmgia, 256;
at dedication of Tannenberg Memo-
rial (1924), 246, his proposed candida-
ture for the presidential election
(1925), 256; his plan to permit Prmce
Wilhelm to take part m army
manoeuvres (1926), 299-300, 301, his
dismissal from active command of
Reichswehr, 299-300, 301; at Pots-
dam ceremony (March 21, 1933), 443;
his exile from Germany, 443

Serbia, German offensive agamst (1915),
47, 62, 63 n.

Severing, 401

Silesian campaign, Hmdenburg’s. See
Pohsh campaign

Silesian coalfields, 40, 126, 129

Skoropadsky, Hetman of the Ukrame,
136, 148

Smuts, General, 163

Social Democrat Party, the, and the
German Peace Resolution (July 1917),
110, 111, 112, and the dismissal of
Michaelis from the Chancellorship,
138; and the Emperor’s abdication,
187, 189, 190, 192, 201; and the
restoration of the authority of the
Central Government, 207, 211; and
the appomtment of Bauer as Chan-
cellor (June 1919), 218; and the “stab-
in-the-back” theory, 235; and the

INDEX

503

Social Democrat Party — continued
reorganization of the Peichawelir, 288,
289, and the presidential election
(1925), 252, 255, 265-266; andLuther’s
programme of new taxation and re-
valuation, 305; and Luther’s rmnority
government (1926), 306; and the
ratification of the Young Plan, 345;
and Brunmg’s financial and economic
reforms, 349, and the presidential
election (1932), 368; and the Dape of
Prussia, 404, 405, puts Reichsbanner
on fightmg basis, 405, and the general
election (July 1932), 405; and the
general election (March 1933), 438,
440, at Reichstag session m KroU
Opera House (March 23, 1933), 446
Socialist Party, the, their demand for a
new franchise law for Prussia, 100,
104, threaten a revolution (Summer
1916), 100, and the revolution of
November 1918, 160, attack Papen
Government, 405, and the Enabling
BiU of Hitler, 446-447
Sociabst Republic, German, proclama-
tion of, 201

Soissons, battle of, 162
SoH, 164, 172

Somme, battle of the, 67, 81, 82, 97
Soor, battle of, 4

Soviet Republic, German, proclamation
of, 201

Spa (i) H6tel Britanmque, German
Great G.H Q. at, 143, 144, 158, 161,
163, 166, 169, 170, 176, 182, 183, 188,
189, 190, 198, 203, 209, 227, 357, Hert-
Img’s mterview with Hindenburg at
(July 1, 1918), 154-165, conference of
officers at (November 9, 1918), 194-
196, 199, 300, (ii) Chateau de la
Frameuse, meetmgs of Crown Council
at— (a) July 2, 3, 1918, 156, (6)
August 14, 1918, 168-159, 161; inter-
view of Hmdenburg and LudendorS
with Kaiser at (September 29, 1918),
162-163

Spam, Kmg of, German proposal to seek
mediation of, 159

Spartacist Rismgs- (1) January 1919,
213-214; (2) March 1919, 215
Spartacists, the, 189, 201, 206, 211, 212
Sprague, Professor, 325
S.S., the, and events of June 30, 1934,
466, 461, 463. See Storm Troops,
Bhtler’s

“Stab-m-the-back” theory, 167, 229,
233, 235, 237, 238, 239, 257, 437-438

Stahlhelm, the, 258, 261, 317, 323, 326,
349, 350, 368, 375, 376, 435, 440
Stalluponen, battle of, 9-10
Stegerwald, 339-340, 358, 392, 438
Stem, Baron vom, 286-287, 288
Stem, General von, 15
Stinnes, 86

Stockholm, negotiations between Stmnes
and Protopopofi at, 86
Storm Troops, Hitler’s, equipment of,
370, their mobilization (March 13-14,
1932), 370, suppression of, 374, 376,
their proposed mcorporation m the
Reichswehr, 374-375, their prohibi-
tion repealed, 381, 387, 399, 400, and
the general election (March 1933),
438, and the Brown Terror, 441; and
the passage of the Enabhng Bill
(March 23, 1933), 446; stomng of
Seldte by, 462; raid monarchists’
dinner-party (January 26, 1934), 452;
their appropnation of Winterhilfe
proceeds, 453, proposed reduction of,
454; and the events of June 30, 1934,
455, 461, 468

Strasser, Gregor, 362, 373-374, 428, 463
Stresemann, Gustav, personal appear-
ance, 277; his succession to Basser-
mann as leader of the Liberal Party,
104; his attack on Bethmann Holl-
weg, 104; cross-exammed by Crown
Prince, 105, mduced to abandon
German Peace Resolution, 111; as
agent of the High Command, 104,
248, opposes proposed German peace
offer (June 24, 1918), 164; on hearmg
news of Armistice proposal, 168; as
German Foreign Mmister, 273-274,
284, and the Policy of Fulfilment,
248-249, 251, 258, 273-274, 276, 296,
318, 326; and the evacuation of the
Rhineland, 249, 258, 274, 276, 279,
280, 282, 284, 285, 286, 319, 326, 327;
plots agamst his hfe, 249, 258; and
the rehabihtation of Germany m the
eyes of the world, 252, 275, 286; his
support of Ebert, 251; at Cabmet held
on news of Butler’s rising at Munich,
292, declares cessation of passive re-
sistance m the Ruhr, 249, 252, 274;
his negotiation of the Locarno Agree-
ments, 258, 275-276, 278, 279-282,
283, and the reorganization of the
Reichswehr, 274, 280; his negotiation
of the London Agreements and the
Dawes Plan, 274, and the settlement
of reparations, 274, 285-286, 319, 324-

504

INDEX

Stresemann, Gustav — continued

326; concludes the formation of a
with the Nationalist Party,
276, and Hindenburg’s election to the
presidency (1925), 258-259, 261, 276,
277; his attack of angina pectoris, 277,
his first meeting with Hmdenhurg
(May 19, 1925), 277-278, 295, sup-
ported by Hindenburg m his foreign
policy, 277, 278, 281, 282, 283-284,
285, 293, 294-295, 323, 450; and the
disarmament question, 279-280; his
foreign policy supported by Luther,
305; Gessler’s support of his foreign
pobcy, 281; press-attacks agamst,
280-281, 326, his resignation de-
manded by Nationalist Party, 281,
secures evacuation of Pirst Rhineland
Zone, 280, 281-282; and the admission
of Germany into the League of
Nations, 279, 282-283, 299, his signa-
ture of the Brian d-Kellogg Pact, 284-
285; his fight with ill-health, 277, 284,
285, 286, 318, 325, 327; his signature
of a treaty of neutrahty and non-
aggresBion with Soviet Russia, 284,
295; refuses Prench demand for an
Eastern Locarno, 285, bis negotiations
for the termination of the Dawes
Plan, 285, 324-326; his acceptance of
the Young Plan, 285-286, 325-327,
332, taunts Poincare with preferrmg
a Ruhr to a Locarno Policy, 318;
defends the huildmg of a new battle-
ship, 318; allows Nationahat Minister
to hint at rectification of Germany’s
Eastern frontiers, 318-319; torpedoes
Confessional Schools BiU, 321, his m-
clusion in Muller Cabmet (May 1928),
323, 392; his pohcy savagely attacked
by Hugenberg (Summer 1929), 326,
331, 332; his signature of the Rhine-
land Evacuation Agreement (August
29, 1929), 327; his resignation de-
manded by Hindenburg, 328; death
of (October 3, 1929), 331
Strikes. (1) November 1914, 194; (2)
January 1918, 133, 142-143; (3) at
Kapp putsch (1923), 290
Stulpnagel, 300
Sturmer, Baron, 86

Stuttgart, flight of Government to, 251
Submarine warfare, unrestricted Ger-
man. See U-boat warfare, unre-
stricted

Sitdarmee, Linsiugen’s, 49, 52, 53
SiLsseXt the, torpedoed, 92

Taimenberg, battle of, 7, 11, 18-25,
26-29, 32-33, 37, Tenth Anniversary
of, 245

Tappen, Colonel von, 43, 57, 58, 59
Tardieu, Andre, 248 n , 382, 383, 387,
393

Tarnopol, German capture of, 121
Temps, Le, and the election of Hinden-
burg as president (1925), 276
Teschen, Austrian Imperial G.H.Q at, 69
Thalmann, Ernst, 255, 266, 368, 370
Thoiry, 284
Thyssen, 256

Times, The, and the election of Hinden-
burg as president (1925), 277
Tirpitz, Grand-Admirai von, personal
appearance, 260, on the younger
Count von Moltke, as being a physical
wreck, 32 ; on his hearmg of Great

Britain’s participation m war, 34 n ;
on Hindenburg (m 1914), 45; urges
the adoption of unrestricted U-boat
warfare, 46, 88, 89, his plan for mak-
ing Hindenburg dictator of Germany,
63, 260, and the dismissal of Ealken-
hayn from his position as Chief of the
General Staff, on list of “war-
criminals”, 231; persuades Hinden-
burg to stand for presidency, 259-261
Tisza, Count, 126
Torgler, 411, 412-413
Trade Unions, 187, 345, 346, 368, 395,
404, 405, 428

Tramm, Oberburgermeister, 225, 271
Traub, Pastor, 257 n.

Treviranus, 301, 303, 311, 322, 331, 340,
358, 462-463
Trotsky, Leon, 122, 132
Tsar See Alexander III, Tsar
Tsantsa. See under Alexander III, Tsar
Tschiraohky, 452
Tugenhund, 350

Turkey, German support urged for her
Jehad, 47, loyal adhesion to Central
Powers of, 123; collapse of, 160

U-boat warfare, unrestricted, adoption
of, 46, 82, 83, 88-93, 101, 171, 236,
239; its practical results, 100, 124;
abandoned, 173; Allied indignation
over, 217

Ukraine, the German occupation of, 132;
conclusion of separate peace with
Central Powers, 134; dehvery of
grain-supphes to Germany from, 134,
182; German measures regardmg, 136,
148

INDEX 505

XJniJBcatioii of commaTid, secured by
Central Powers, 67-68, 82
USA, the, her supply of munitions,
food, etc., to Allied countries, 88, 92,
100; and the German mvitation to
mediate, 82, 83, 92, entry into war,
89, 92-93, 100, 124, 145, 150, 156, and
the Treaty of Versailles, 215
USSR, the, German military haison
with, 274, 284, 293-294; treaty of
neutrahty and non-aggression be-
tween Germany and, 284, Treaty of
Rapallo between Germany and, 294-
295

Yaheddm, Crown Prmce, of Turkey,
144, 145

Valentmi, Count yon, 91, 92, 107,
140-141

Vaterlandfront, 111, 233

Vemce, meetmg of Hitler and Mussolmi
at, 456, 458

Verdun, German attack on, 65-66, 67,
81, 82, 99

Versailles, Treaty of, British reply to
Papal Peace Note (August 1917) em-
boied m, 113, German expectations
regardmg, 216-216, acceptance by
Germany of, 216-221, 246, 251; war-
guilt clause in, 216, 220, 230; execu-
tion by Germany of its provisions,
246, 247, 274, 279, 280, 288, 289, 291,
347, 349, 379, 382

Verviers, mutmy of German garrison at,
196

Vesle, the, AQies brought to standstill
along (July 1918), 156

ViUers-Br6tonneux, fightmg at (March-
April 1918), 149

Vistula, the, German advance to (Sept -
Oct. 1914), 38, 39-40; their withdrawal
from (October 1914), 40-41

VorwartSf pubhcation of the German
Peace Resolution m, 111

Waldersee (elder). Count von, 7
Waldersee (younger), Count von, 9,
11-12, 13, 16, 27, 28, 203, 301
Waldow, von, 168
Warburg, Max, 166

“War-criminals*’, trial of, 230-232, 233,
246, 294

War-guilt, question of, 216, 220, 237,
278, 317-318, 319
Warmuth, 236

Warsaw, German efforts to capture, 38,
40, 42, 44, 66; fall of, 60
Weber, Max, 232

Weimar, meeting of National Assembly,
at, 214

Weis, Otto, 446, 447

Westarp, Count, 105, 164, 322, 331

Wiegand, Karl von, 257 n.

Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, on
Moltke at the time of his resignation
of the Supreme Command (September
1914), 34 n,; supports Tirpitz’ plan to
appoint Hindenhurg dictator (Feb-
ruary 1915), 63; German war-council
meets at hia G.H Q , Cambrai (Sep-
tember 1916), 80, and the dismissal of
Bethmann HoUweg from the Chan-
cellorship, 104-106; mterviewa the
Reichstag party leaders (July 1917),
105, at Crown Council meetmg at
Schloss Bellevue (September 11,

1917) , 114, his secret support of the
German proposed peace offer (at the
hegmmng of 1918), 137, and the
German offensive agamst Amiens
(March 1918), 146, at Crown Council
meetmg at Spa (August 14, 1918),
158, hia proposed renunciation of the
succession, 183, 187, 189, 200; urges
Emperoi to return with him to Ms
own headquarters (November 9,

1918) , 198, his composition of his
memoirs at Wiermgen, 228, on hst of
“war-crimmals”, 231, offers himself to
the Alhes as a “war-criminal” on the
general behalf, 232; Bruning decides
against the possibility of his accession
to the throne, 353, 355; his proposed
candidature for the presidential elec-
tion (1932), 367, supports Hitler m
presidential election (1932), 368; and
Brunmg’s proposM for the restoration
of the monarchy (1932), 367-368; on
Hmdenburg (at the beginning of 1932),
367-368, congratulates Papen upon
his Marburg speech, 459

Wilhelm, Prince, candidatxire for Im-
perial throne, 183, 192, 299, 300
Wilhelm I, Kaiser, 183, 271, 287, 443
Wilhelm II, Kaiser, and the Imperial
manoeuvres (1908), 6,andtheappomt-
ment of Moltke as Chief of the General
Staff, 8, 49, writes a laudatory letter
to Hmdenburg after the battle of
Tannenberg, 33, and the appomtment
of Falkenhayn as Chief of the General
Staff, 34, gives his approval for Con-

606

IKDEX

Wilhelm II, Kaiser — continued

rad von Hotzendorf’s Galician ofien-
sive, 49, and the appomtment of
Lndendorff as Chief of Stafi to the
new Sudaimee, 49-50, 51-52, and
Hindenburg’s proposal of a new East
Prussian offensive (January 1915),
50, 51-52, refuses to dismiss Ealken-
hayn from his position as Chief of
the General Staff, 52, his support
of Falkenhayn (at the beginning of
1915), 53-64, 57, approves ‘‘break-
through” on the Karev, 57-58; vetoes
Hindenburg’s proposed Kovno offen-
sive (July 1915), 67, and Falkenhayn’s
withdrawal of forces from Eastern
Front (October 1915), 63, 64, and
Hindenburg’s appomtment to the
command of w^hole Eastern Front, 67-
68, supports Falkenhayn’s proposal to
withdraw further forces from Eastern
Front (August 1916), 69-70; and the
dismissal of Falkenhayn from his
position as Chief of the General Staff,
68, 70-71, 71 n ; and the appomtment
of Hmdenburg and Ludendorff to the
Supreme Command, 71, 72; at meet-
ing of Imperial council at Pless
(January 9, 1917), 91, 92, and the dis-
missal of Bethmann Hollweg from the
Chancellorship, 102, 103, 104, 105-
106; and the proposed appomtment of
Bulow as Chancellor, 103-104, 107,
and the German Peace Resolution
(July 1917), 106, 110; rejects Bern-
storff and;] Herthng as possible sue-’*
cessors to Bethmann Hollweg in
Chancellorship, 107; and the appomt-
ment of Mic^aehs as Chancellor, 107-
108, and Jhe J’apal Peace Note, 112-
113, and the qiTestion of Belgian in-
dependence, 113^114, and the passage
of Lenin through Germany, 119, 123;
and the CrownT Council meetmg at
Schloss Belleyhe (January 2, 1918),
129-131; and the terms of the Treaty
of Brest-Litovsk, 127-131; and Luden-
dorff’s demand for Hoffmann’s dis-
missal from his position as Chief of
Staff in the East, 131; approves
German offensive of 1918, 137, 147;
and the demand of the Supreme Com-
mand for a share m final peace negotia-
tions, 139-140, and the dismissal of
Valentuu from his position as Chief
of his Civil Cabinet, 140-141; lives in
a special tram, 143; at Crown Coimcil

Wdhelm 11, Kaiser — continued

meetings at Spa (July 2, 3, 1918), 155,
his dismissal of Kuhlmann from the
Foreign Secretaryship, 155, and
Ludendorff’s proposed resignation as
First Quartermaster-General, 157;
and the proposal of an Armistice, 102,
163, 165, 205, proclaims a parha-
mentary regime, 163, question of his
abdication, 168, 172, 174, 182, 183,
185, 186, 187-188, 189-204; and the
resignation of Ludendorff as First
Quartermaster- General, 176, 177, 178;
and the retention of Hmdenburg m
the Supreme Command, 177, 178,
deserts Berhn for Spa, 182-183, 184,
his plan to restore order m Germany,
190-192, 197; at meeting of Imperial
council at Spa (November 9, 1918),
195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202;
his flight to Holland, 192, 201, 202,
203-204; his conviction of Hinden-
burg’s responsibihty for his flight to
Holland, 204, 240-243, proposal to
try, 227-228, 232, 240; his removal to
Doom, 240; his correspondence with
Hmdenburg on the flight to Holland,
240-243, question of his restoration,
353, 355, on Groner’s dismissal from
the Ministry of Defence, 385
Wilhelmshohe, Hmdenburg’s G.H.Q.
at, 209, 210-211, 212, 213, 214,
302

Willisen, Baron von, 35, 36 n , 296,
298, 301, 328, 340

Wilson, Woodrow, 89, 165, 288, 312;
address at Mount Vernon (July 16,
1918), 172; message to Congress
(December 4, 1917), 172; First Note of,
170-171; Second Note, 171-172, 173,
174; Third Note, 174, 178, Fourth
Note, 186; Fifth Note, 188 See
Fourteen Pomts, Wilson’s
Winkler, 257, 259
“Wmterfeldt Group”, 339, 342
W interJiilfe, 453
Wirth, Josef, 248, 249, 368
Wurttemherg, King of, Wilhehn, visit
of Erzherger to, 68; abdication of,
206

Wytschaete, German capture of, 149

Yarmouth, bombardment of, 88
Young Plan, 286-286, 310, 323, 324-326,
328, 331, 332, 337, 341, 343, 344, 345,
347